


Put It Down

by adiduck (book_people)



Series: No Choir [4]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: CC-2224 | Cody Needs a Hug, Cody is Going Through It, Depression, Found Family, Gen, Injury, Injury Recovery, Kid Fic, Mind Control, Mind Control Aftermath & Recovery, Obi-Wan Kenobi Needs a Hug, Once again the kid is Luke, Still, They both get them!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-27
Updated: 2020-09-27
Packaged: 2021-03-07 17:01:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 21,602
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26671078
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/book_people/pseuds/adiduck
Summary: A group of Tusken Raiders attack the Lars Homestead, and Owen is injured in the assault. Beru calls on the only family nearby and free enough to help.
Relationships: CC-2224 | Cody & Obi-Wan Kenobi, CC-2224 | Cody & Owen Lars & Beru Whitesun, Obi-Wan Kenobi & Owen Lars & Beru Whitesun, Owen Lars & Luke Skywalker & Beru Whitesun, Owen Lars/Beru Whitesun
Series: No Choir [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1844878
Comments: 101
Kudos: 365





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So this was supposed to be a series of oneshots. Funny how these things go. This fic is finished, and I'll be posting the second half on Monday!
> 
> I want to take a moment to give special thanks to the following people:  
> [Askerian](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Askerian/pseuds/Askerian) for as usually letting me spam her with entire passages and giving me her thoughts and a quick beta on the fly  
> [joisbishmyoga](https://archiveofourown.org/users/joisbishmyoga/pseuds/joisbishmyoga) for giving this fic the final read-through/beta all fics always desperately need  
> [whimsicalimages](https://archiveofourown.org/users/whimsicalimages/pseuds/whimsicalimages) for cheerleading throughout, and not laughing _too_ hard when I realized I was going to break 20k words
> 
> Couldn't have done it without you, friends!

There was distressingly little any of them could do about the homestead being in Tusken territory.

It wasn’t as bad as it could be; the Larses had made an agreement with the local Tusken tribe when they built. They provided part of their moisture harvest, and in exchange they received rights to live where they did, and a promise that _that_ tribe, at least, would leave well enough alone.

(They took in escaped slaves sometimes, when circumstance brought them to the Larses’ door while Owen and Beru had someone stopping over, along the Trail; the Sand People’s way of life appealed to some. It was hidden, and full of open sand and sky. Nobody was fool enough to try to find a former slave amongst Tuskens.)

The agreement was old, though, and Tusken borders changed frequently enough that sometimes a new tribe would take the land and take umbrage, or decide that the farm was a resource that their enemy tribe should not have and attempt to eliminate it, or just find themselves wronged by a different colonizer and decide that an unprotected homestead in the middle of a desert was as good a way to take revenge as any.

Beru didn’t know why this particular attack came, and honestly, she didn’t care. Luke dropped his puzzle game and _screamed_ , turned to stare blindly through the wall at something that he couldn’t possibly see, face scrunched in terror and tears in his eyes, and Beru _moved_ , scooped her child up and locked him in his room in the very center of the house, picked up one of the blasters by the door and ran full tilt out the door, shouting as loud as she could.

She fired two blaster shots into the air as warning before she even saw the Tuskens, bearing down on Owen where he sat in sand too dark to be dry, leg shining with blood and mouth set as he grimly fired his own blaster at his attackers. The Tuskens looked up, startled, and Beru fired again, hit one of them square in the chest as Owen took advantage of their distraction to hit another one, and then the remaining two were on Owen and Beru hit the mass of them a moment later, whacked one in the face mask with the butt of her rifle and swung it around to fire point blank as they went down--

\--The hit to the side of her head sent bursts of white across her vision, and she hit the ground hard as Owen shouted. The remaining Tusken turned tail and _ran_ , and Beru couldn’t move to follow, fighting where she lay not to be sick in the dark, damp sand.

“ _Beru_ ,” she heard, and Owen was there, must have dragged himself to her instead of firing on the Tusken. “Sweetheart--”

“I’m fine,” Beru said, and carefully, carefully levered herself back up, blinked the spots out of her eyes.

“Stars,” Owen said, and then Beru was leaning into his chest, his arms around her, still bleeding into the sand. Beru turned her head, and blood smeared a dark streak against Owen’s outer poncho. She breathed out, shut her eyes and _clung_.

“That one’ll be back,” she said, grimly.

“Yes,” Owen agreed, “and he’ll bring backup.”

They let themselves sit there and breathe, nothing but the sound of wind through sand around them, until the world stopped spinning enough for Beru to bandage the wound in Owen’s leg, and get them inside.

* * *

The blaster bolt had left two clean holes on either side of Owen’s thigh, and a clean bone break in between. Beru used one of their few bacta injections and a local anesthetic, and set the bone before splinting it and bandaging the whole thing, quickly. Owen grit his teeth and, very kindly for Beru’s nerves, did not pass out.

“Your turn,” he said, and Beru leaned forward to let her husband treat the head wound. The antiseptic stung, but wasn’t unbearable. Owen’s strong, calloused fingers were indescribably gentle anyway.

“I do believe we’ll both live,” she joked, and Owen snorted as he eased a bandage over the wound, taped it down. In the other room, there was a loud clatter, and then Luke’s voice raising in a wobble. Owen’s fingers froze against Beru’s skin, as Beru’s heart _spiked_ , panic-fast.

“Luke?” Beru called. “Are you alright?”

“There’s a bug!”

Beru closed her eyes, adrenaline leaving all at once. Owen slumped into her, sighing out his own tension. “Put it outside, then!” he called. “Stay on the porch!” There were thumps, and then the door opening, and closing again. Beru and Owen exchanged a look, and Owen went back to first aid, slowly.

“We’ll be fine,” he grumbled, back to the topic at hand, “so long as they don’t come back before I’m able to stand.” He sat back to survey his work, mouth set and stubborn. (They both knew, honestly, that they could not count on the Tuskens not returning before Owen was mobile again. Beru didn’t say that--speaking it aloud felt like speaking it into the world. She knew better.) Beru dropped a kiss on the edge of his tight jaw, and another on his lips.

“We’ll need some help in the meantime,” she said, instead of what they both knew was true. “At least someone to stay here while we go into town. Aunt Yafe’ll see us, and we can afford her prices, but we’d have to take a day away from the farm.” Owen hummed, grim. They couldn’t do that while Tuskens had a grudge against them. They’d come back to everything they owned in the world burnt to the ground.

Besides, Aunt Yafe may be the best healer in the area, but even she might not have access to a bone mender. Beru would need help even apart from the encroaching threat of the Raiders returning. She was only one person: a husband who couldn’t walk, a four-year-old to watch, a homestead to run, and a moisture farm to tend all on her own was too much.

Owen looked at her steadily for a moment, and then sighed, reaching up to rub a hand over his face.

“Is there anyone else we can ask?” he tried, and if it were anyone but Owen it would have sounded like a whine. Beru smiled.

“Chin up,” she said, cheerfully. “He’ll be just as reluctant, so you’ll get to enjoy the sour faces he makes. And he might bring Cody now, so we’ll get a second set of hands _and_ a babysitter out of the bargain.”

“Joy,” Owen drawled, and kissed her again, something like relief and fear making it a fierce burn in her bones, until the door slammed open and Luke stomped in to give them an update on the bug situation.

* * *

In the morning, Beru settled Luke down with something to do, settled Owen down to watch Luke and distract himself, and went out to secure the homestead. The desert was quiet, in that way that meant the pressure was changing and a storm would soon rise; good, for a single person alone in the vast expanse of sand while the Tuskens were roused, but still a busy day for the farm, considering all the locking down of vaporators, harvesters, and field droids that needed to be done quickly. All units prepared, she stepped back in to make second meal, made a face at the sand that had managed to track into the house without her there to sweep it away.

“You should wait and head out when it’s cooler,” Owen suggested, grimacing as he shifted and jarred his leg, trying to hide it. Beru frowned, hid it by fussing at the plates. Owen wouldn’t appreciate her hovering, would end up feeling guilty and tense instead of resting as much as he could.

“The storm is probably going to hit tonight,” she disagreed.

“We can wait until tomorrow,” he said, and shifted very carefully, tightened his jaw instead of wincing as though they had not been married for nearly eight years--as though she did not know his tells. Owen could not wait until tomorrow.

“No, Owen,” she said, and frowned at him over her mug of tea to drive her point home.

“I’ll be fine,” he insisted, stubbornly. “It’s just one more day, and we don’t know what all a healer can do regardless.”

“ _No_ , Owen,” Beru said again, and Owen sighed. “I’ll be back for third meal.”

“Are you goin’ta see Cody and Mr. Kenobi?” Luke asked, looking back and forth between them with all the fascination of someone watching a speedball game.

“I am,” Beru said, and then over Owen’s sigh, “They might be coming to stay for a little while!”

“I wanna come,” Luke decided, and Beru only managed not to laugh at Owen’s long-suffering grimace through years of long experience, shoulders relaxing in the face of her love’s expressive faces, driving away the image of blood on sand.

She set out after second meal, Luke strapped in and cheerfully shouting about the teaching module Owen had managed to make sound like a game that morning, pausing occasionally to let Beru make interested noises about the many and varied different types of rocks ground down into Tatooine sand.

“They’re really small,” Luke informed her. “Like, _this_ small--Aunt Beru, look!--this small, see?” He held his hands almost together when Beru glanced back. “So you can’t really see them, but they’re all there! And they all make the sand and the sand makes the desert and the desert makes the planet!”

“Amazing!” Beru said, and they crested the rise, Ben’s homestead suddenly visible in the little valley he’d claimed as his own, and Cody barely visible sitting in the shade of the stoop, a blaster in pieces and a cloth in his hands. He was already looking in their direction, stood as he recognized them and stepped to the door to lean inside for a second, before leaning down and reassembling the blaster. He finished as Beru came to a stop, left the weapon leaning against the door as he walked out to meet them.

He looked healthy, Beru decided, flushed in a way that spoke to physical exertion more than the early afternoon’s heat, movements easier than she’d ever seen from him. He’d filled out from the gaunt just-enough-mass-to-be-functional, too, a healthy weight and muscle tone that spoke of Cody perhaps having used the time they were all apart to recover from his injuries fully, and perhaps even from some of whatever they’d done to him in the army. His hair was longer, stubble on his chin speaking more of someone who hadn’t bothered with a close shave than a conscious choice. It didn’t look bad at all--Cody had the confidence in his stride to carry most anything he decided to do with this face, Beru thought.

“Afternoon, Beru,” he said, and Beru watched his eyes fall on the bandage on her temple. He frowned, slightly, face evening out almost before Beru could process it, and then caught the projectile four-year-old that had freed himself from his safety harness prison and launched himself at Cody’s chest with a battle cry.

“Cody!” Luke shouted, gleefully, probably directly into Cody’s ear, and then clung like a rathtar.

“Luke!” Beru said, in that familiar place she had been assured all parents reached between despair and exasperation and perhaps morbid amusement. “Don’t shout in Cody’s ear!”

“He’s fine,” Cody said, a corner of his mouth tilting up in wry amusement. “We were designed to withstand decibels that would shatter a normal human’s eardrums.” And then he pinched at Luke’s ribs until he let go with a flail and a shriek, flipped him upside down, and tucked him screaming in glee onto his hip. "Welcome," Cody said, as though he had never been interrupted by a small human missile. "We didn't know you'd be coming by today. Water?"

Beru...closed her mouth, blinking. “...Thank you,” she said, for lack of any idea how to respond to that particular joke. Cody stared back at her, mildly.

Beru got the distinct impression she was being teased.

“What are you doing out here in the heat of the day?” she asked, as she followed him into the house, smiling at the absolute chaos of color that made up the shabby little hut these days.

“Training,” Cody said, with an easy shrug. “Not much else for me to do, honestly.” He set Luke down on his feet, bent down to ruffle his hair. “He’s in the root cellar frowning at the crops,” Cody told Beru’s child, conspiratorially. “You should go get him.”

“Okay!” Luke said, and threw himself forward to wrap his arms around Cody’s neck in a sudden hug-assault before dashing past and towards the stairs, leaving Cody frozen and blinking. He glanced up at Beru--she made sure to paste the most mildly interested look she could on her face; return teasing was fair play--and sighed, getting up.

“Have a seat,” he said, wry. “I’ll get everyone some water, and then you can tell us why you’re here.” His eyes were a little sharp as they watched her, steady, like he saw the shape of it anyway. Beru closed her eyes, and banished the anxious tension in her shoulders at Owen alone, a storm coming in with her on the other side of the Wastes, a request she doubted would be met with pleasure her primary purpose, and did as he suggested.

* * *

“Absolutely, we’ll come to assist,” Ben said, as soon as she finished explaining the situation, once Luke had been properly watered and let loose on the far-too-interesting root cellar, with its hydroponic planters and grown-up tools. “You needn’t even ask.” Beru… slumped just a little, more relieved than she could say. Ben watched her, a knowing little smile on his face.

“I don’t know about that,” she said, and ran a hand over her hair, patting it into place. “But thank you.”

Ben shook his head, waved her off again. “Do you have an idea when the Tuskens will return?”

“No,” Beru admitted, and sighed. “Probably not today--there’s a sandstorm coming in. Maybe tomorrow, maybe next month. Sand people have long memories.” She could still see Owen sitting in the sand, blood spread out beneath him; could still hear Luke’s terrified scream from his bedroom--if she’d even been a _second_ later--

“They hit the base pretty regularly, while I was there,” Cody offered, sitting straight in his chair and expression serious--professional, Beru realized, and wondered why she was surprised. “Once a week, or thereabouts. We got good at spotting them. Do you have traps in place?”

“You’ve found traps to work?” Ben asked, surprised, and Cody’s mouth twisted into something of a smirk.

“The ones we set up after I got there did. At least once.” Ben reached up to his beard, hand covering something of an amused smile.

“Of course. Foolish of me to ask.” Cody’s smirk went amused as well as their eyes met.

“I wouldn’t be opposed to traps,” Beru said, a smile tugging her mouth up in spite of herself, as the two of them re-focused on her. “We’ve used some in the past--I can show you both where they were. Considering where we are, though, we’ve found it’s better just to keep your eyes open and hope a new dune doesn’t form to block your line of sight--”

“I can do some levelling of those,” Ben interjected. Beru paused, felt her eyebrows raise. Ben raised an eyebrow back, waggled his fingers at her in demonstration. Cody snorted, and then rolled his eyes expansively

It was hard to be anxious in the face of the two of them. Beru let herself relax a little more. “--and,” she continued, “we’ll need help with more than defenses, I think. For a while. I can’t say how long I’ll need help.”

And there it was, what she’d known was coming--Ben hesitated. “Surely Owen will be able to see a healer before too long?” he asked, carefully. Beru closed her eyes, carefully composed her next sentence before nodding.

“I don’t know that there will be much for a bone mender to work on,” she admitted. “We don’t know how clean the break is, and it’s his femur. We’ll know when I can get him into town.”

There was silence as they both observed her with varying levels of discomfort.

“...Tending a farm is a bit outside of my skill set,” Cody said, finally.

That sounded reluctant, but it… wasn’t a no. “Ben can show you,” Beru suggested, hands clasped in her lap. “Or I can. Or you can help me inside while I go out to tend the farm. Luke loves you, and Owen’ll keep his grumbling to a minimum if I’m not around for it to break against--” Cody stiffened. It almost wasn’t obvious, if not for Ben’s eyes cutting to the line of his shoulders. He sighed, and it drew Cody’s eyes to him. They watched each other for a moment, as the silence stretched around the three of them. Beru closed her mouth, surprised herself. She’d expected Ben’s reluctance, knew the reasons why. Cody, though--

“We’ll be happy to offer whatever help you need, Beru,” Ben informed her, and his tone was sure, steady. He turned, and Cody’s shoulders eased, infinitesimally. Beru wished, absently, that she were closer family, so it would only be mildly rude for her to ask. “For as long as you need. If we’ll be away for that long, though, I should perhaps start preparing to be away from _here_ for a while. I assume you want to leave this evening, ahead of the storm?”

“If we can,” she said. “I promised Owen I’d be home tonight. He’s all alone there right now.”

“I’ll prep some bags,” Cody said, and that, somehow, was that.

* * *

Owen was not where Beru had left him when they returned. Somehow, he’d gone from the chair in the living room to a chair at the foot of the stairs, a blaster rifle conspicuously next to him and the shutters opened enough that he could watch the storm coming in. “Welcome,” he said, in a voice that carried pain and frustration along in the currents of relief. “Glad you could--”

“Uncle Owen, Uncle Owen, Mr. Kenobi and Cody are gonna sleep here tonight!” Luke interrupted, bouncing into the house and very nearly leaping onto Owen’s lap. Beru caught him as he shot past, sweeping him up, and didn’t let go as he squirmed and squawked, appalled at this disruption of his plans.

“Luke,” she said, very sternly, and turned him around to frown at him. “We talked about this. No jumping on your Uncle until he’s all better!”

“Aunt Beruuuuuu,” Luke whined, all aggrieved and liquid-eyed lies. “I wasn’t _gonna_!” Behind her, Ben cleared his throat in a way that was definitely not a laugh. Beru shot him a narrow-eyed look over her shoulder, unimpressed with the hand over his mouth he’d tried to make look like stroking his beard, or the very, very neutral face Cody had pulled out of somewhere, pile of armor on the ground before him as he clasped his arms behind his back. Considering who had started the trend of Luke physically assaulting people as a greeting, the air of innocence around them really did not hit home. Beru sighed.

“Gently, child mine,” she reminded Luke, and set him down so he could bound over to Owen. To his credit, he paused in front of his uncle, vibrating. Owen snorted and patted his good leg, expression going soft for anyone looking, and Luke scrambled up, picking up where he left off as though there had been no delay.

“Mr. Kenobi ‘n’ Cody are gonna stay for a long time until you feel better ‘n’ they’re gonna sleep here ‘n’ help Aunt Beru ‘n’ I’m gonna show them the _garage_ \--”

Beru tuned him out, turning to their guests. “Please come in,” she said. “Make yourselves comfortable. Water?”

“Thank you,” Ben said, politely, as Cody nodded and picked up his tied up stack of armor again. “Where should we leave our things?”

“You’ll be in the sitting room again, for now,” Owen called. “I set it up best I could--”

“ _Owen_ ,” Beru snapped.

“--But I’m not as mobile as I could be,” Owen continued, blithely ignoring her. Oh, that man--

“That’s perfectly fine,” Ben cut in. “We don’t want to put you out. The sitting room is perfectly serviceable for a few nights.”

“There’s only one couch,” Owen pointed out.

“Uncle _Owen_ , I was _talking_ ,” Luke whined, tugging on Owen’s clothes huffily.

“The armchair was perfectly fine, last time,” Ben insisted, trying for serene, and Cody shot him a look so judgmental that Beru had to press her lips together very hard, start making her way towards the kitchen, to stop herself bursting out laughing.

“We’ll switch off,” Cody said, like it was an order more than a potential solution.

“Cody--”

“Obi-Wan,” Cody cut him off. “Neither of us is injured, and we don’t know how long we’ll need to be here. We switch off or I’m going to sleep on the floor.”

“If it looks like this’ll be a while, we’ll get a cot when we’re in town tomorrow--” Owen said, and Beru closed the door on the rest of the conversation. Water, she told herself firmly, and then the rest.

She walked back into Luke having apparently gotten bored of Owen and deciding to use Cody as a jungle gym, while Ben and Owen made strained conversation about the farm work that would need doing, and sighed. This… would be a long few days.

“Storm’s about to hit,” she said, instead of anything else. “Let’s head further in so I can lock up the entryway.

That, at least, everyone could agree on.

* * *

“You could have told me,” Ben’s voice carried from the sitting room later, and Beru paused, finally finished with her night and headed up to her husband and bed. Outside, the storm beat against the walls of her home, loud and violent--a contrast, to the low, calm tone of her guest.

“It didn’t seem like that high a priority,” Cody’s voice returned, something stubborn threaded through it, and Beru--should keep moving, she knew. This was _incalculably_ rude, listening in on a conversation that was not her own, for information that was not freely offered, by someone not close enough family to count.

“Your comfort is a priority, Cody--”

“It’s just _hair_.”

“You forget,” Ben’s voice said, firm, “that I have met clone troopers before. It’s not just hair.”

 _Ah_ , Beru thought, and swallowed a sigh. This was about the razor.

It had seemed a little thing, at the time. They’d finished third meal, and Beru had cleaned up--glaring until Ben had sat back down, just for this first night. They were guests until the morning, after all, and Beru had been raised to be _polite_ , if nothing else. Owen had offered them use of his kit in the ‘fresher, since of course packing up all of theirs had seemed silly earlier, when they were on a time crunch, and Cody had asked, casually, if he had a razor he could use.

Ben had frozen up all at once, turning to look at Cody and frowning, and Cody had very pointedly not looked at him as Owen had said yes of course, Cody was welcome.

Apparently, this was the continuation of that conversation they had not had.

“I think I get to make the decision as to whether my hair is ‘just hair’ or not,” Cody responded, this time close to a snap, and Ben tsked, cutting him off.

“Don’t move your head, I’ll cut you.”

“The horror,” Cody drawled, and they both fell silent. Over the low howls of the storm outside, Beru thought she could just make out the sound of a blade scraping over something--probably skin, hair.

She should move on.

“There,” Ben declared, before she could decide to start walking again. “The back and sides are done.”

“Thank you,” Cody said, quietly.

“Hm,” Ben said. “There’s… some scarring. From the explosion. It’s visible now with your hair so short.”

“That’s fine. Maybe I’ll just keep the top a bit longer. I don’t want to scare Luke.”

“It suits you,” Ben offered, and that was it. Beru shook herself, and finished rounding the bend into the hallway, walking past the sitting room without looking in.

“Good night!” she called as she passed. “Let me know if you need anything.”

“...Good night, Beru!” Ben called back, and Beru very determinedly went to bed.

* * *

Cody was clean-shaven in the morning, the sides and back of his hair cut short against his skin--enough that scars from the explosion he’d healed from were visible, spread up the back of his neck and into his hair. He’d kept the top longer, tight curls flopping over his forehead and tickling the tops of his ears.

Beru smiled and told him he looked very nice, and didn’t say anything at all about what she’d heard.

* * *

Later that morning, Beru took Ben and Cody out to show them around the farm, and to get a lay of their new landscape herself. “We’ll have to unbury that moisture vaporator,” she said, already feeling tired and anxious. “The new dune’s half swallowed it. And the stilts around the north vaporator collapsed in the night it looks like, though at least we don’t have to tunnel through to it anymore.”

“What direction did the Tuskens come from?” Cody asked, and Beru pointed them at it, up over the rise that hadn’t been there yesterday, and out into open desert. Cody hummed, thoughtful, as Ben brushed some sand out of the innards of the nearest water filter.

“We’ll have all this cleaned up by the time you return tomorrow,” he said, decisively, and Cody nodded, something shifting in his shoulders in a way that reminded Beru, suddenly and viscerally, that Cody was a lifelong military man--

Beru frowned.

“Neither of you will be coming along into town?” she asked. They both visibly paused, turning to look at her. She shook her head. “I assumed you’d want some things, now that you see what we have and what you need.” Ben’s eyes narrowed, and then cut to Cody, who--

\--yes, was looking tense again. “I think,” Ben said slowly, as he took in his partner, “that Mos Eisley is a bit too close to the Imperial Base for Cody to venture right now,” and Beru suddenly felt stupid. Of course. She kept _forgetting_ , somehow, that Cody was a stormtrooper, not just an old soldier, and had technically deserted when Ben dragged him through the sands to them that first night.

“Right,” she said, and sighed. “Well, you can still come, Ben, if you’d like anything--”

“Two people should be here,” Cody interrupted. He hadn’t relaxed at all.

Something, Beru thought, grimly, was not being said, here, between the three of them. From the look of things, Ben at least knew what it was. She looked between them, and then tilted her head, bit her tongue at the last minute. They hadn’t offered her an explanation, but she could make clear her own offer to listen to one without obviously prying.

“Two people might be best,” Ben agreed, instead of anything useful, and didn’t quail even a bit when Beru sent him her best ‘I know you’re not giving the whole tale’ glare. “One to begin maintenance and set up a bit of a perimeter, and one to watch Luke.”

Cody shifted, just a bit, the first bit of motion he’d let himself have since the conversation went wonky. “I can at least clean things out if you move the sand first,” he said. “And I’m probably best suited for the perimeter.”

“Mm,” Ben said, and glanced at him again. Cody did not glance back. There were layers to this conversation that Beru _was not privy to_ , and it could not be more obvious.

...Well, she decided, all at once. She was going to be horribly rude tomorrow and pry, and damn Owen’s long-suffering sighing and the impropriety of it. Now, though, with the daylight wasting and a long speeder ride ahead of them, an overnight stay with a painful injury in their future, was not the time.

“We can take a list with us,” she offered instead.

“We’d appreciate that,” Ben agreed, and that was that, for now.

* * *

“Well, your femur is in more than two pieces, so I suppose I should congratulate you on managing the worst case scenario,” Aunt Yafe drawled, leaning back from the x-ray to prepare a hypo. Beru shut her eyes. Of course. Owen, because he was the sort of man for it, let out a sigh that managed to encompass the entirety of his discontent with the situation in one long exhale, and then squared his shoulders. “Alright,” he said. “What next then, Yafe?” Beru smiled, helpless. Sands and stars, but she loved this man.

“Surgery before the bone mender can even begin to help,” Aunt Yafe said, all business, and hypoed Owen’s leg with quick efficiency. Owen jumped, and caught Beru’s hand as she reached out on automatic, gave her fingers a reassuring squeeze before he let go. “And I’m leery of using it at all. Maybe best to just pin it and cast it the old fashioned way, since you’ll have to recover from surgery regardless. You’re looking at at least two ten-days with regular bacta injections. That’s an anti-inflammatory and antibiotic, by the by. No more bacta until I get in there, or it’ll heal wrong.”

“Do you have time to do it today?” Beru asked, Owen humming agreement. “We’ve got to get home--there’s been some issues with Raiders. We’ve got family watching Luke and the farm.”

Aunt Yafe looked up, frowning at Beru with intensity. “Do I know the family?”

“No,” Owen said, wryly. “My side. He’s reliable, but nobody deserves Luke for more than 48 hours at a time while also watching for trouble.”

Yafe relaxed, and snorted. “Brave man,” she drawled. “All that on his shoulders alone. I can fit you in this afternoon, but I’ll want you here tonight, not in whatever guest room you’ve managed to weasel out of someone.”

“We were thinking a hotel,” Beru said, and then smiled as Aunt Yafe pulled herself up to her full 4’10”, mortally offended.

“You mean you were thinking _my_ guest room, or you should have been, Beru Whitesun.”

“Yes, Aunt Yafe,” Beru agreed, and Owen leaned back into her. “I appreciate it.”

* * *

There were two stormtroopers at the gates of Mos Eisley--backs straight and armed in their stark white armor, too still unless called on to move--not statues, precisely, but something not-quite-human, heads only turning as they watched the speeders and pedestrian traffic in and out of Mos Eisley past the bored Hutt gate guard, bodies only shifting from their still ready stance to stop a speeder, walk deliberate and looming to the pilot to ask terse questions--intimidating, and the people of Tatooine were not easily intimidated. Nominally, the ‘troopers were looking for dissidents, for wanted criminals of the Empire. Everyone wondered.

They weren’t droids, of course, but here in the Outer Rim, most people had to take the Empire’s enormous, ever-churning propaganda machine at its word to believe that. Before meeting Cody, before seeing a face under a helmet and red on stark white armor, Beru had wondered.

The thing was, Beru thought, growing unease crawling slowly up her spine as she slowed in her trek across the road while she watched, she didn’t have to wonder anymore. She knew they weren’t droids. What they were, she understood, from that first night of exhausted explanations from Ben, Cody bandaged and exhausted and feverish on their couch, was _controlled_.

She was only out and about because there was little she could do at the clinic, with Owen stuck in place and Beru unable to make time go faster for him, ease his pain and boredom any more than she already had. She’d gone out instead, with her own lists, and Ben and Cody’s lists, clutched in her hand--a note that they were out of flour tucked alongside a long list of mechanical parts for a dead man’s switch and more rope; a request for a razor in a precise, almost regimentally uniform handwriting alongside Beru’s own note that Cody had taken a look at their old backup blaster pistol and obviously, physically bitten his tongue to stop himself saying something, to Ben’s clear amusement.

She should move on, she knew. Nobody on Tatooine with a lick of sense sought out the attention of Imperial stormtroopers. She should take her list to the weapons shop, try to find her family a spare blaster or two, drop by a junk shop on the way back to her Aunt’s and get the rope and parts Ben and Cody indicated for traps. Drawing attention to herself was the wrong move here, and she absolutely knew it.

(Cody had been so tense and still, so _visibly_ unhappy as Ben had carefully, carefully worded his way around the reason why Cody could not come to Mos Eisley, would likely _never_ be able to come to Mos Eisley without his face covered. And these men were that reason, weren’t they--the stormtroopers Cody had served alongside.)

The Stormtroopers stood like white beacons of Imperial occupation on either side of the gates, fixed points against an endless sea of bright sand, almost too sharp to look at and armed in a way that screamed to any who saw them that they knew how to use their weapons.

(Cody held a blaster the same way--a set to his shoulders, his hands. Cody was a damn confident man, with a blaster in his hands, had been nothing but cool, competent professionalism and sharp smirked ease when discussing the Tuskens with them, the day before. Had moved with something of a relieved purpose.)

These men were so _still_. Beru--

\--Beru didn’t like acting on knowledge that she had not gathered herself.

Owen was probably going to kill her.

“Hello,” she called, picking her way down the street towards the gate, avoiding the traffic and pedestrians walking the other way; and when the stormtrooper didn’t turn to her, “excuse me?”

The Stormtrooper twitched-- _switched on_ , she thought, irrationally, and banished the thought firmly--head snapping up to her. She froze, caught--a fly in a glue trap under the cold blank stare. She shook her head and squared her shoulders, and then carefully walked up to him, did her best to radiate unconcern. A speeder went past, the pilot gawking at her.

“Hello,” she said again, coming to a stop in front of him. The Stormtrooper was silent, had not moved at all other than to continue to follow her progress. Beru suddenly, viscerally realized she had not planned anything to actually _say_. “I’m sorry,” she offered, stalling for time as her mind whirled through possibilities. Something that would engage but not be too strange to ask a Stormtrooper; what could she possibly want with them? (She wondered if the ‘trooper was thinking the same thing. She wondered if he was _capable_ of that level of thought.) “I know you’re on duty, but I was wondering if you had a moment?”

There was silence for a moment, as the other Stormtrooper’s helmet tipped in their direction. “We are at your disposal, ma’am,” the ‘trooper in front of her said, finally. Perfectly blank and polite, in Cody’s voice. Beru ignored the clawing sense of unease again. “Has there been a disturbance?”

“No,” Beru said, firmly, kicking herself for realizing that the ‘troopers would of course assume that’s why she approached them. Absolutely not. She would not put her family in danger for her own curiosity. “Nothing like that. I am...actually, looking for some advice, and it occurred to me that you might have some expertise in the area. Would you be able to answer a question? I wouldn’t want you to get in trouble…” She trailed off, let the Stormtrooper stare at her, silent as stone.

“...Certainly,” the ‘trooper answered, slowly, like sounding out the words. “We are at the disposal of the citizens of this planet,” and then, with something that sounded like confidence, but for the flat, rote recitation, “within the confines of our mandate.”

This, Beru thought, somewhere in the back of her mind, was a _terrible idea_. She was going to bring the Empire down on their heads. She was going to expose her family to chipped Imperial Stormtroopers--

(Even talking about a perimeter, asking questions about the threat to her family, Cody had sounded sure. Competent and experienced. He didn’t talk with his hands--Beru imagined that tendency would be trained out of young men who would so often be holding weapons--but he did tilt his head in emphasis, leaned his torso into words--body language, Beru considered, that might have been born of not having facial expressions to read. His voice had been modulated, but still very much the voice of a _person_. Not like this--wooden and flat. Reporting, rather than communicating. It made her heart thump harder, her skin _crawl_.)

\--Something, she thought, that would make sense to ask Stormtroopers, but nothing that would need their attention. They assumed a disturbance, but the Wastes weren’t controlled by Imperial forces...

“We’re dealing with some Raiders at my homestead,” she settled on, trying to sound calm and unconcerned, “and I was in the market for another blaster. I was wondering if you had any recommendations?”

Owen was going to _kill_ her. And then, probably, Ben would kill her again.

She was met with silence. That was fine. She shifted back on her heels, kept her face bland and friendly. They hadn’t asked for any information about her, yet; she wondered, idly, if they needed to. Was she on a list somewhere? Certainly they hadn’t asked her any follow-up questions about the situation…

(Were they even allowed to have recommendations for things?)

“...Imperial Stormtroopers are issued E-class blasters, ma’am,” the ‘trooper said finally, which was… some sort of answer. “They are Imperial issue only.”

...Less of an answer than she thought. Beru did not frown, she did not react. Another speeder went by, pilots openly gawking at the young woman apparently having been stopped by Stormtroopers. She ignored that, too. “Oh?” she said, instead, perfectly pleasant. “Do you like them? I might be able to get something similar,” she suggested.

“We of course are grateful for the ability to serve the Empire,” the Stormtrooper responded--no inflection. No opinions, then, simply information. That was--

That was--

(This was Cody, only a few months ago. This was the man who let her child use him as a jungle gym, who’d admitted he’d bought the most obnoxious colors he could for Ben’s hut just to needle him, who’d begun--if yesterday was any indication--to regain something of a sense of humor. He’d been this; too still and empty, unable say more than the barest of facts. They were issued E-class blasters. Imperial issue. We are grateful for the privilege, so that we might better serve the Empire. Beru was going to be _sick_.)

“Well,” she said, in it for a credit now, and willing to see the conversation through. “If the Empire has put them in the hands of its troops, I can only imagine they’re the best of the best. You’re holding an E-10, then?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Beru hummed. “What are the specs, if you don’t mind my asking? So I have some basis for comparison.”

Silence, _again_. Was that too far, if the weapon itself was for Imperial use alone?

“The E-10 blaster is produced by BlasTech exclusively for the Imperial Stormtrooper Corps,” Cody’s voice stated through the Stormtrooper’s vocoder, wooden like a report. “The rifle has three standard power settings and a standard capacity of 100 rounds. It is capable of housing plasma charges with a capacity for 500 rounds. The rifle comes equipped with a standard scope and a glowrod for low light vision, and has been touted by BlasTech as the obvious successor to the DC-15A.”

Beru… nodded. “Any issues you’ve noticed with it?”

“Any issues with Imperial equipment or weaponry would be classified, ma’am,” the Stormtrooper told her, smoothly.

“Of course,” Beru said, and abruptly, she was done. “Alright, well, I can at least keep those specs in mind while doing my own shopping. Thank you for your time and your service.”

“It is our privilege to serve the Empire,” the stormtrooper said, and turned to watch the speeders again, rather like Beru had ceased to exist between one breath and the next. Beneath their notice after all, apparently. Beru should… probably be grateful.

Beru wanted, suddenly, to reach up and take this man by the shoulders, tell him that he was being controlled and that she’d met a man like him, who was steady as a stone wall and still so much more alive.

She didn’t do that, obviously. She turned, nodded at the other Stormtrooper with a smile, and walked away.

* * *

It was late by the time they got home the next day--well after third meal, late enough that Luke was probably already in bed. He may have actually _been_ in bed, Beru noted with some guilty relief, as they pulled into the garage and their small child completely failed to barrel out the door to see them. Owen sighed, rubbed the fatigue out of his eyes, as Beru turned off the speeder and got out. There were no signs, from what she could tell, of any sort of struggle, and the worry that the Tuskens had moved that quickly slowly ebbed from her shoulders.

“Hear me out,” Owen said, still seated, relaxing himself as he watched her watch their home. “What if I just stayed here tonight?”

“You’d be one big knot in the morning,” Beru pointed out, smiling in spite of herself. “Come on, it’s not far.”

“All those stairs,” Owen grumbled, but let Beru open the door and help him out, bracing him as he got the crutches in place and shifted his weight onto them. “Sand in crutches, and then stairs.”

“Poor baby,” Beru crooned, and dropped a kiss on his mouth before going to get the door. “What torture--ten minutes of crutches for the privilege of your own bed tonight.”

“You could at least pretend to be sympathetic,” Owen grumbled, but he gave her a reluctant smile as he hobbled his way out, cringing a little bit as the crutches crunched into the sand. Beru closed up the garage for the moment--she’d come back for the cot and supplies once she got Owen settled--and then walked to hover at his elbow, just in case, and together they made their way across the moonlit expanse towards their door, into the darkened hallway and down the staircase into the living space proper.

No four-year-old ambushed them as they passed the sitting room. Owen raised a tired eyebrow, stilling in the doorway. Beru sent up a silent prayer that Ben and Cody had actually managed to put Luke to bed, though the fact that neither of them were in the sitting room wasn’t a particularly good sign.

(There was no note by the door, as they’d agreed to in the event something happened that caused them all to run while Beru and Owen were gone. It both helped and didn’t, to notice. The absence wasn’t danger--it was just unexpected.)

Owen had noticed the lack of note as well, and was frowning into the dark with the bearing of a man who didn’t quite trust the silence. “I’m going to look in on them,” he said, with the weary suspicion of every adult with a four-year-old in their care, and the wary suspicion of a man with some history of disagreement with the adult watching his child.

“I think you should go to bed instead,” Beru said, without much hope. Owen ignored her, because of course he did. “Owen--”

“I’m just going to check,” Owen insisted, and Beru sighed, sent up a prayer that Ben was not quite stupid enough to do what Owen suspected he was doing. The trek down the hallway was slow, and Owen’s frown got increasingly deeper--pain, exhaustion--and they found their guests and child exactly where Beru expected, in Luke’s room.

They were, of course, doing the one thing guaranteed to mean Owen wouldn’t just go to bed.

“How’d you do that, Mr. Kenobi?” Luke asked, eyes wide with wonder where he sat cross-legged on the floor of his room--in his pajamas, at least--watching a constellation of his rock collection wind and dip through the air in front of Ben. Ben himself was sitting across from him, fingers moving like he was directing the motions, a small tired smile on his face, while Cody sat in a chair in the corner and ignored them both for a holopad. He was frowning--either because of the noise or what he was reading, Beru couldn’t guess.

“Ben, Luke,” Ben said, patient like a reminder, reaching up to run a hand over Luke’s hair as he kept his eyes on the stones looping through the air.

“Okay,” Luke agreed, and reached out a hand for one of the stones. It danced away, swooping around Beru’s child’s hand, and Luke grinned in delight. “How’d you make them do that, though?”

“Practice,” Ben said, wryly, and Cody snorted from the chair, apparently not as wholly focused on his reading as he looked.

“If I practice,” Luke began, thoughtful, “can I--”

And that was the end of Owen’s endurance. “No,” he said, and Ben’s head shot up, a shadow of something like guilt crossing his face as the stones fell. In the corner, Cody’s head came up too, focusing on them with sharp eyes before relaxing. “Not everyone can do that, Luke. Only people like Ben.”

Luke looked up, face lighting as he saw Beru and Owen in the doorway, before what Owen had said sunk in. “Oh,” he said, slumping sadly, as Owen glared at their guests instead of his child.

“Sorry, son,” Owen said, giving Luke a tight smile. “Hello, we’re back. Ben, could I have a word?”

“Owen,” Beru tried one more time, just in case she could still diffuse the situation. Owen scowled harder, and Ben sighed.

“Of course, Owen,” he said, and rose to his feet. Cody’s eyes went between them, shoulders setting in a way that implied readiness, eyes narrowed. Beru stepped in, and bent down to give Luke a hug.

“Hello, dear one,” she murmured to him, and Luke shook off his disappointment to give Beru a hug. “I see you’ve been busy.”

“Ben said ‘scalled the _Force_ ,” Luke said, already back to cheerful excitement. “He said that he can make things move and stuff! Cody can’t, though.”

“Most people can’t,” Beru informed her child, and pulled him into her lap, snuggling him as he squirmed. Cody was very, very studiously reading, frown firmly in place. Beru wondered if he was just as uncomfortable about talk of the Force as Owen; certainly, he’d been exposed to it more, and the Empire was actively opposed to it. “It’s something very special that only a few people can do, and many people are scared of it.”

“That sounds silly,” Luke decided, with the conviction of a four-year-old, and Beru stifled a smile, watched a little of the tension go out of Cody. He turned off the pad and stood.

“I’ll leave you to it,” he said, and gave Luke a smile as Luke whined, suddenly realizing he was being _put to bed_. “Good night, shiny.”

“Night,” Luke grumbled, and then Cody was gone.

Beru watched him go, and then turned back to her boy. “Now,” she said, and tickled the little captive in her arms to hear him giggle, before she stood and moved over to the bed. “Tell me all about your adventure with Ben and Cody. Were you good?” Luke lit up.

Beru sat there for a full half an hour and let Luke talk himself out, and then tucked him in as he fell asleep, still young enough for it to be with the suddenness of a lothwolf pup. Then she turned out the light, slipped out the door, and went to see if Ben and Owen had killed each other yet.

* * *

_“You don’t have the right--”_

_“I was hardly teaching him anything, Owen. You expect me to pretend that_ I _don’t have the Force, just because you don’t want him to learn--”_

 _“Considering he is_ four years old _and if he talks about the Force to the wrong people we could all be_ killed _, yes I do expect you--”_

 _“He’s already getting_ visions _, Owen, and you know--”_

 _“He is_ my child _, and it is_ my decision _. You and I have talked about this before, Obi-Wan Kenobi--”_

* * *

Owen and Ben were still arguing when Beru went to find them--an old argument, worn by years. Beru didn’t bother interjecting, just gestured at Cody, stuck in a corner pretending to be furniture in the kitchen, and together the two of them went to get the supplies and put them away.

“I’m sorry about all this,” Beru tried, loading Cody up with crates of supplies from the speeder. “Ben and Owen have been having this fight since Luke came to us.”

“It’s fine,” Cody returned, voice clipped and eyes on the crates, as though it were taking him actual concentration to hold them (it wasn’t, Beru could tell; he wasn’t struggling to carry this much at all). “It’s hardly my business what the Gen--what you and Obi-Wan decide regarding your nephew. I doubt I have enough knowledge of the Force to recognize Force use, short of the obvious.”

Beru frowned, halfway through pulling the folded up cot out of the back seat.

“No?”

“No,” Cody said, and the cut of his eyes to her told her to leave it, loud as if he’d said it with his voice. “Where would you like me to put these?”

Beru watched him for a moment longer anyway, bit the inside of her cheek to stop herself asking more than she'd been offered.

“...In the kitchen is fine for now,” she said, finally. “Come on. We’ll have you set that down, and then kick Ben and Owen out of the sitting room and figure out the best place for the cot.” She turned, and if she thought she might have heard ‘thank you’, almost too quiet under the sound of the door grinding on sand, she didn’t draw attention to it.

Beru was Tatooinian, born and bred. Cody was, she thought, becoming a friend, but that didn’t give her any claim on his innermost thoughts. Whatever it was about the Force that Cody was emphatically not noticing was none of her business.

It _was_ none of her business, but she still sat up, mind turning it over and over again, until Owen stomped in and collapsed on the bed, frustration practically roiling off him, and Beru had other things to think about.

They none of them got much sleep, that night.

* * *

Cody was up the next morning even before Beru was, quietly making himself some caf in her kitchen as he stretched out his arms, bounced on his toes to warm up the calf muscles in his legs. He glanced at her as she walked in, going still for a moment before clearly forcing himself back to unconcern. Beru sighed mentally.

“Early riser, I see,” she teased, quietly, as she settled next to him, started pulling pans down onto the stove. He glanced at her and gave her a little bit of a smile, head tilting down in a nod. “But not a morning person?”

Cody snorted. “Standard model off Kamino is equally efficient at all hours of a standard rotation,” he drawled, and then yawned, covering his mouth politely with his hand.

Beru stared at him for a second, and then gave a truly inelegant snort of her own, letting herself fall into overtired laughter. “I can see that,” she returned, as the caf finished and Cody reached into her cupboards for two mugs. Cody shot her a sleepy-eyed little smirk back, alive and brimming with sly humor.

“There was a time when your skepticism would’ve landed you in a court,” he informed her, very serious but for the amusement in his eyes. “Slander. The longnecks wouldn’t have it.”

“I think I could take them,” Beru told him, equally serious. “I have first-hand experience of a trooper using a countertop to prop himself up as he forlornly waits for a caf machine to complete.”

“You're pre-caf,” Cody shot back, and poured her some. “Your perceptions cannot yet be trusted in a court of law. Do you take anything in this?”

“Black’s fine,” Beru said, and accepted her mug. The silence was a little easier, after that.

“I just wanted to train before I did a circuit of the perimeter,” Cody told her, about halfway through his second cup and her first, a morning fry-up spitting on the stove in front of her. “Didn’t mean to disturb your routine.”

“You aren’t,” Beru told him, very firmly. “I’m happy for the company, really. How’s it look out there?”

Cody shrugged. “Quiet,” he admitted. “No sign of the raiders so far. I started setting up a few traps with what you had--”

“Oh! That reminds me,” Beru said, shaking her head at herself. “I got some of what you asked for in Mos Eisley. They’re--” she looked at the crates behind her. “In one of those.” Cody hummed, looking over at what he’d brought in the night before.

“Thanks,” he said, setting down his mug. “May I--” and Beru waved him off, turning back to her cooking.

“Crowbar’s in the pantry,” she told him.

Cody went over to the crates, and a few minutes later there was the sound of bolts squeaking on plasteel as he pried the lids up and off. She was just about finished, setting the pan off the heat to cool somewhat before beginning to plate, when he let out a noise of surprise.

“You bought a deece?”

Beru turned, took in the sight of Cody lifting the old DC-15A blaster rifle out of the crate, fingers already moving over it with familiarity as he snapped the barrel down to check the cleanliness, pulled it up to his shoulder to look through the sight.

“I saw you making faces at our old pistol,” she admitted, and it startled a huff out of him--embarrassed, she thought. “I know that Stormtroopers use E-10s, but those weren’t available--”

“ _Good,_ ” Cody muttered under his breath, ensuring the safety was on the blaster before setting it down, carefully, turning back to the crate to see what else she’d picked up. Beru blinked.

“...Because they’re Imperial issue?” she guessed.

“Because they’re terrible,” Cody told her bluntly, and lifted the bag of blaster charges out of the crate, too, checking inside to, presumably, count how many she’d gotten. Startled, Beru laughed, drawing his eyes back to her, a single eyebrow raised.

“Are they,” she teased, and turned back to plating. “Their specs are about the same as the 15A, aren’t they?”

“The DC-15A is an excellent blaster rifle,” Cody informed her, very seriously. “It has a range of ten klicks on a tripod, a max capacity of 300 shots on high power and 500 on low. It wasn’t as versatile as the 15S in a close-combat situation, but not everything can be the perfect rifle,” he drawled, and Beru snorted again, setting a plate aside for Owen and turning to pull the bread out of the oven where it had been toasting. “Meanwhile, the E-10 is essentially a fancy, awkward _club_.”

“My, Cody,” said Ben from the doorway, and Beru admitted she jumped. That man was lighter on his feet than a tooka, she swore. “Tell us how you _really_ feel.”

“It jams, I’d say, fifty percent of the time,” Cody insisted, and he sounded genuinely _aggrieved_ , which nearly had Beru laughing again. “Usually in the _worst_ possible moment. I think it’s a design feature.”

Beru gave in, letting herself lean over the stove and laugh, and Ben joined her, chuckling as he walked the rest of the way into the kitchen. Cody shook his head at them both, managing to radiate disapproval at their response to his obviously correct opinions even as his mouth twitched up at the corners, amused.

“Well,” she managed, finally. “I’m glad I managed to find a DC-series instead, then.”

“Me too,” Cody told her, as Luke finally stumbled into the kitchen himself, latched onto the nearest leg, and began whining for breakfast.

* * *

“That was… impressive,” Beru said, two days later, as she and Ben watched a sandcrawler drive away, their bounty at their feet. Ben huffed, waving a hand through the air as though to bat away the compliment.

“Jawas are hardly the most stubborn creatures I’ve had to haggle with,” he said. “You should try a senator some time.” Beru snorted and shook her head.

Beru hadn’t managed to get all the parts they needed, for the traps Cody had in mind, so when a group of jawas pulled up two days later, Ben had accompanied Beru out to the sandcrawler, hood pulled up and goggles pulled down against the early afternoon glare. “Do you have a list of what you’re looking for?” he’d asked Beru, who’d blinked, and had admitted she did, holding it up. “If you want,” he’d offered, watching three jawas scurry down and towards them, “I can handle the negotiations.”

Beru had lived on Tatooine her whole life, always out away from town in the desert proper; this was not her first negotiation with jawas.

Something about the way Ben held himself, body straight and relaxed, shoulders square as though off to war, had made her agree to let Ben try, anyway. It had been a good decision.

“I’ll stick to jawas,” she said now, hoisting one of the crates up, as Ben picked up another. “And Owen, when he gets an idea in his head.” She shot Ben a look under her eyelashes, and waited for the inevitable huff and hunch of his shoulders. She was not disappointed.

“You’re certainly more likely to win an argument with Owen Lars than I am,” he admited, tone conversational.

“Only about some things,” Beru responded, light and calm. “Owen doesn’t like the idea of things he can’t hold in his hands, and he worries about the people he loves. Something that flies in the face of what he’d think was safe? I’d have some trouble, convincing him to see a different point of view there.” They crossed a dune, carefully slid down the other side. “So I have to ask you, is it going to harm Luke, if he doesn’t start training soon?”

Ben sighed, turned to look at her, eyes too knowing. “I had a feeling that’s where you were headed with this,” he said, resigned. “It… won’t hurt him per se. You have to understand, though, that he would already have begun training, if...well. At the temple.” Beru nodded, silent. Let him continue. “There’s...there _was_ ,” he corrected, “a misconception about the Jedi; that we took children against their guardians’ wills, to train. We did not, unless the child was in danger. Luke is… not.”

“He is very much not,” Beru agreed, stopping before the stoop of her home. Ben stopped too, tilted his head in acknowledgement.

“So the decision is yours,” Ben said. “If you and Owen don’t want him to learn, then I won’t teach him. We’ve had this conversation before.”

“You and Owen have,” Beru returned, calmly. “Now you are having it with me. Do you think he should be trained?”

Ben was silent for a moment. “I do,” he said.

“Why?”

“Because,” Ben told her, voice measured and steady, “training puts into his hands an ability that would be used as a weapon against him.”

“You think,” Beru suggested, “that he will not always be safe here.”

“I think,” Ben said, voice very tired, “from some experience with that branch of your extended family, Beru, that whether or not he would remain safe here, he will not stay.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...So I got impatient. In my defense, this was _supposed to be a oneshot_.
> 
> Hope you enjoy the second half!

The biggest problem with Owen’s injury was that he couldn’t move for long.

Owen was an active man. He was on his feet constantly, lifted boxes and tools and did the majority of repairs of their moisture vaporators himself, with the help of some droids at absolute best. He walked for hours in the hot sun every single day of the year, did a good portion of the hunting that supplemented their food stocks himself, dug them out--with Beru’s help, usually--when a sandstorm buried them, and then came back home and played with their toddler until he dropped.

Now, he couldn’t steady himself on two legs without assistance, was spending most of his time either laying down or sitting with his leg propped up.

He was, to put it bluntly, going stir crazy, and the fact that they’d yet to see hide nor hair from the Tuskens was not helping his mood.

“How much longer, again,” he grumbled one morning, as he watched Beru check and recheck that she’d packed all the water surplus they were bringing to town to be sold.

“A ten-day and a bit,” Beru told him, not unsympathetically, and leaned over to drop a kiss on his pout. He grumbled, but kissed back, and dredged up a smile for her as she pulled back and dropped another kiss on his forehead. “You’ll survive, I promise,” she teased, and stood the rest of the way up, wrapping her shawl around her face and hair as she settled her goggles on her forehead, in a position easy enough to pull on when it came time to drive. “Cody’s in the kitchen with Luke--they’ll probably head on in here once I leave.” Cody, they’d found, was happy to sit with Luke for hours as he nattered on about his lessons, or take him out and walk him through some of the exercises Cody did every morning, or follow him around the dunes and make sure the boy didn’t fall head first into the sand and suffocate, all with an easy, faintly amused steadiness, so long as there was another adult within shouting range. The moment he had to watch Luke alone for any length of time--

\--Well. It was something of an open question, why Cody didn’t want to watch Luke alone. It certainly wasn’t that he didn’t like him, or wasn’t good with him. Beru would get it out of him eventually.

Owen snorted agreement, sat back in his chair. “I’ll probably take Luke and let him escape to check the perimeter in an hour or so,” he told her, and then hesitated, before reluctantly continuing, “Ben’ll be in for second meal, and we can switch off.”

That was more than Owen had been willing to give Ben in days. Beru gave him a look, which he returned, mulish. _Don’t butt in_ , that look said, and Beru sighed. Fine, fine, she knew. Owen would handle it. “Second meal’s ready and on the stove,” she told him instead, because Owen knew better than to try to cook in her kitchen on his own. He hummed, raised his eyebrows at her--who, me?--and she swatted him. He snorted again. “Need anything, while I’m out?”

“Patience,” Owen shot back, and Beru laughed, delight sudden and sharp in her chest.

“I’ll see what I can do,” she promised, and had to lean in to kiss him one more time. “They were fresh out of your brand, last I checked.”

“They usually are,” Owen drawled, and caught and squeezed her hand as she stood back up and turned. Time to go.

The drive into town was uneventful, a light breeze occasionally sending a cloud of sand dusting her and the side of the speeder with slow, soft shushing noises, blowing flat the minor disturbances of a large object rushing just a short distance above the surface. Anchorhead was small--just the town square, surrounded by shops, and enough residences around it to staff them--but usually busy, being the only commercial area within easy traveling distance for those of them out near the Wastes. Today was no exception, and Beru flew into town via the main entrance only to immediately end up in something of a traffic jam, people calling to each other cheerfully and jeering at each other’s driving skills and walking speed. She waved herself at Jula Darklighter, as she pulled up in front of Huff’s building, getting out in time to give the other woman a hug.

“How’re things, Beru?” she asked, leaning back. “You haven’t been to town in tendays now!”

Count on Jula to want the gossip. Beru smiled back and shook her head. Couldn’t tell Jula anything, it’d be from here to Mos Eisley by the end of the week. Better not to tell her about the Tuskens, or Owen’s injury. Who knew who’d be coming to their door, looking to offer some ‘help’ for a fee. “Oh, you know,” she said, shrugging as she leaned back into the speeder, standing to offer Jula her pad and inventory. “That sandstorm, and Luke’s been busy recently.”

“Mm, I thought of you during that sandstorm,” Jula said, as she counted out the stock. “Always do. I do worry about you three out alone next to the Wastes, dear. One of these days, something’s going to come out of one of those storms that you can’t handle, and you won’t have anyone to help out!”

Beru thought of the last thing to come out of a sandstorm, and smiled again. Jula was more right than she knew, sometimes. “Sweet of you, Jula,” she said as she accepted back her pad once Jula signed off. “But I’m still not selling to your brother.” Jula laughed, head thrown back, and shook her head.

“Fair enough, Beru Whitesun,” she teased, and Beru got back into the speeder to fly around back and unload. “Oh, just to warn you, Huff’s out back there. There’s…” Jula paused, mouth twisting, and there was, suddenly, unease written into every inch of her--something unsettled. Anxious.

Beru paused too. “Jula?”

Jula sighed, and leaned forward. “This is in confidence,” she told her, and Beru stilled, leaning in as well. “There’s been some Stormtroopers visiting, these last few days. Inspecting Huff’s stock. He’s furious, of course.”

Beru’s blood ran cold.

“Stormtroopers?”

Jula nodded, then leaned back. “Just showed up maybe three days ago, suddenly very interested in Huff’s wares. Guess they finally have enough repair work done after that explosion a while back to go back to bothering folks.” Three days, Beru thought, feeling her insides turn to ice, even in the hot Tatooine sun. How long, she wondered, for a Stormtrooper to look her up, for them to realize she was a registered moisture farmer? To track her here to Anchorhead-- “Wanted to know,” Jula said meaningfully, heedless of Beru’s inner turmoil, “who our suppliers were, but we told them we didn’t give out that information, of course--”

“Of course,” Beru said, and shut her eyes. She took a deep, slow breath, and made a decision, got back out of the speeder. “Jula, dear, I don’t think I want to tangle with Stormtroopers. If I take a cut this time, can I unload here, and you have one of your boys bring it on back?

“I--” Jula blinked. “Yes, of course, Beru--”

“Thank you, dear,” Beru said, and turned to haul her barrels out. “Sorry, just--well. I’m afraid they’re--”

Jula stared at her for a moment, and then relaxed, nodding like she understood. “They’re empty,” said. “You’d think they were droids.”

“...Yes,” Beru said. “That’s right.”

* * *

When Beru got home, a full two hours before she planned, it was to Cody sitting on the front stoop, watching Luke very seriously build something of a castle, tense the way he always was when he was stuck watching Beru’s nephew alone. His head shot up when Beru crested the rise, and Beru could just tell his eyebrow had hit his hairline even before she could fully see his features.

“You’re back early,” he said, as Luke skittered out of the way with his shovel, complaining about Beru coming too close to his pile of loose sand masquerading as a structure.

“Something came up while I was in town,” Beru said, and something in her tone must have been off, because Cody immediately stiffened, hand going to lay on the blaster he had within arm’s reach any time he stepped outside. “Where’re Owen and Ben? They kick you out to yell at each other again?”

Cody...hesitated, mouth thinning into a straight, neutral line.

“...Where are they, Cody,” Beru asked, tired and already knowing she wasn’t going to like this answer, and Cody... sighed.

* * *

Owen was not supposed to stand for very long on his broken leg. He most _certainly_ was not supposed to be walking the perimeter through sand without even a crutch for support. So, naturally, that’s what he was doing, leaning on Ben heavily as they hobbled along, bent together over each trap and conspiring like little boys playing war, Ben gesturing wide as Owen nodded seriously along, unwisely prodding at parts of a trigger with the boot of his _broken leg_. This man. Beru didn’t know what she was supposed to do with him.

“Weren’t they not talking just this morning,” Beru asked, wryly, as she spied on her husband and her husband’s brother, Cody peering at them from around their makeshift dune cover right next to her.

“Mm,” Cody said, noncommittally, “they weren’t.”

“So you... decided to not to intervene here, because you thought this would be a good bonding experience for them?” Beru continued.

“Something like that,” Cody agreed, voice reaching the same levels of wry as Beru’s. “I know the G--Obi-Wan. He’s stubborn as a bantha, but he’s willing to talk terms, so long as you can get him to talk _at all_. They needed to talk.”

Beru sighed. “They needed to talk,” she agreed, watching Owen cross his arms over his chest as he squinted out in the direction Ben pointed, more alive than he’d been since he broke his leg. “But so do we.”

She gives them one more moment, bracing herself for the blast, and then takes a step into the open.

* * *

“I can’t _believe_ you had a _conversation with a Stormtrooper_ ,” Owen snapped, mouth pinched white in fear and furious from it. “What were you _thinking_ , asking Stormtroopers about _weapons_ \--”

“I was thinking that it was less dangerous than pointing them at someone and effectively pulling the trigger,” Beru snapped back, stung and defensive.

“You wouldn’t have been in a position to point them if you had just _minded your own business_ \--”

“Reign it in,” Cody’s voice cracked through the fight, and Beru’s next volley died on her tongue, almost automatic. She turned to look at him, mouth open but abandoned by her voice, felt Owen do the same. Cody raised a single eyebrow. “This is helping nobody.”

Silence reigned for a heartbeat, two. Then Ben snorted. “As you say, Commander,” he drawled, and the tension broke, even as Cody stiffened a bit and shot him a look laced with venom.

“Disagreement?” he asked.

“Not at all,” Ben said, and waved a hand. Cody snorted. He opened his mouth to say something else--

\--and stopped, as Luke’s bedroom door opened and the sound of little feet thumping towards them met all their ears. Beru had just long enough to stand before Luke barrelled into the room in tears, ran right up and into Beru’s arms.

“Don’t _fight_ ,” he sobbed, and the entire conversation derailed just like that, Beru sitting back down to cuddle her child close, wipe his tears away. “I could feel you fighting, don’t!” Cody, sitting in the dining chair closest to the wall, stiffened up like he’d been shot, and abruptly stood up and left the room.

“I’m sorry, dear one,” Beru soothed, as Ben sighed and got up to follow, and Owen looked between them all and reached for his crutches, moving closer to her and their little boy.

“You shouldn’t fight,” Luke insisted, curled into a tiny ball of misery.

“I know, I know,” she soothed, and Owen placed a hand on Luke’s back to stroke down, the way they’d done when he was a tiny baby, inconsolable for reasons they couldn’t figure out.

“But you _aaaare_ ,” Luke wailed, and Owen gave a deep sigh and pressed a kiss to Luke’s hair, another to her cheek.

“We’re both very sorry,” he told Luke, voice as serious as he could make it. “We aren’t really mad at each other, we’re just scared. It’ll be alright, son, we’re all going to be fine.”

* * *

Unsurprisingly, considering Luke had been down for a nap when this all started, he was cranky and clingy for the rest of the afternoon. Luke wasn’t particularly prone to temper tantrums, though of course he _had_ them, so after the third full on screaming, kicking meltdown Ben sighed and leaned over to Owen, voice low. “I know how you feel about the Force,” he murmured, and Owen immediately stiffened, “but at the very least, learning to meditate might send him off to sleep, and it’s something new he might find interesting.”

“No,” Owen said, and kept saying no through the fourth tantrum, through Luke flat out refusing to eat third meal, through him demanding to go outside, and then demanding to come back inside, and then complaining that he was hungry. Cody came in finally around when the suns went down, and stayed in a corner, pretending to read and very firmly, decidedly not getting involved in the argument. Beru... let Owen have his stubbornness. She was well aware that he wasn’t the happiest he’d ever been with her, and her interference wouldn’t _help_.

“Fine,” Owen said finally, utterly defeated. “But only meditation,” and Ben rose without a word, went over to where Luke was grumpily stacking polished stones into a little tower, sat down next to him and carefully held the stones in place so that Luke could place a final one on top. Luke froze, and looked up at Ben, blinking.

“You’re doing the telkensus thing again,” he said, not even a question.

“Telekinesis,” Ben agreed. “The Force. I am. I thought it might help with your tower, here.”

“You aren’t scared when you’re doing it,” Luke observed, and Cody, in a corner, sighed, looking at least ten years older than he actually was.

“No,” Ben agreed again, ignoring that, and Beru set her darning down, watching the exchange. Owen grumbled, but subsided with a glance, watching their boy like a hawk. “You have to be very calm when you use the Force. There’s a technique to it, to let your mind clear.”

“Uncle Owen says I can’t do the Force,” Luke informed him, matter of fact, eyes as accusing as a four-year-old can manage. “But maybe you and Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru and Cody can do the technique thing so you aren’t scared anymore.” Beru felt a laugh punched out of her chest, startled and suddenly so very fond. Owen put his face in a hand and sighed the sigh of the perpetually soul-weary. Ben’s eyes went warm and bright like they did when he was fighting a laugh.

“I think that would be a very good idea,” he said. “Your aunt and uncle and Cody also can’t use the Force, but meditation is something anyone can learn. Cody already knows how.”

“He _does_?” Luke said, eyes shooting to Cody as he perked up. Cody held up a hand and did… some sort of gesture with it, and Luke blinked, turned to Ben as though for an explanation.

“That’s battlesign,” Ben explained. “It means affirmative--yes.”

“I wanna learn battlesign,” Luke decided, and Beru had to swallow her giggles again, leaning into her husband as she watched even Cody’s shoulders shake a little in suppressed laughter.

“I can teach you, if you want,” Ben suggested, switching tactics on the fly, and held out a hand. “We’ll be a bit loud, though, so why don’t we go to your room. I think Cody’s trying to read.”

“Oh.” Luke looked over, and then wrinkled his nose, held up a hand and tried to mimic the movement Cody had done from memory.

“Close,” Ben said, and reached over to carefully move Luke’s fingers into place. “Are you trying to answer or ask?”

“Ask,” Luke said.

“Then you want the query sign--”

They walked through a query, and how to ask Cody if he were ‘engaged’, which presumably was as close as a sign language for the battlefield got to asking if someone were busy. Cody, who appeared to have been drafted into this whether he liked it or not and clearly knew it, sighed and put his pad down before signing what Beru learned was a ‘negative’ sign. Luke was delighted. Fifteen minutes later, he was bouncing between the two men off to his bedroom, chattering on and waving his hands wildly, like he was making up a brand new sign language all his own. Beru turned back to her darning, Owen to his book.

Neither left the sitting room.

Half an hour later, Ben and Cody returned, sans toddler. “Asleep,” Ben confirmed, and they both sat down on the couch. “Where were we?”

“We,” Cody said--aloud, Beru realized, quite suddenly, for the first time since he’d left the room, earlier that day--“were about to say that it’s very unlikely that Stormtroopers at Anchorhead had anything to do with Beru at all.” His voice was very, very dry.

Beru… relaxed, genuinely in spite of herself. “Oh?” she said.

“Mm,” Cody agreed, and then sighed. His voice, when he spoke again, was wooden, almost like he was giving a report. His eyes looked… tired. “This is fairly standard procedure for the occupation of a planet. Stormtroopers have at this point in occupation created a standing presence in most large cities. As such, the Empire is sending out small groups to the larger towns. Once a presence is established there, they will seek out smaller villages still. In five to six standard solar cycles from now, there will be an Imperial presence in every corner of Tatooine, and stage two--pressure to adhere to Imperial law--will begin.” He stopped talking, sat back in the chair a little bit more--let that sink in. “So,” he said, finally, as Beru processed that, as she felt Owen stiffen slowly at the implications, “while talking to active Stormtroopers was…”

“Stupid?” Owen muttered, and Beru turned to glare at him.

“Reckless,” Ben added, wryly.

“Unwise,” Cody continued, and the peanut gallery shut up, “their presence in Anchorhead probably has nothing to do with it. I doubt that ‘trooper even registered the conversation beyond a note that he spoke to someone about the equipment he was holding, Beru.”

The silence stretched.

“Well,” Beru said, finally, suddenly feeling very tired. “Good.”

“Will they have to be more careful?” Ben asked, and Cody sighed, again.

“You will,” he told Ben. “And I’ve just lost the privilege of going into town at all. But no.” He looked at Owen and Beru. “They’ve no reason to note you as anything special. You should both be fine.”

He sounded so matter of fact about it, Beru almost missed the exhaustion sitting beneath the surface. Beru hummed, and abruptly decided they were done for the night.

“I think I’m ready for bed, then,” she informed the room at large. “It’s been a long day. Owen and I will leave you two to get settled for the night.” Ben blinked, visibly startled that the conversation had ended so abruptly. Beru ignored that, pulling herself to her feet and wrapping her darning up to put away.

“We will?” Owen asked, but raised his hands when she glared at him. “Alright, alright.”

“Alright,” Beru said, and set about the task of getting her husband on his feet and out the door.

* * *

“I’m sorry,” Beru told Owen, very quietly, once they were in bed, lights off and home quiet. “I just… well. I--”

“You wanted to poke your nose in,” Owen filled in, and gave her a resigned, fond smile. “Yes, I know. It worked out.”

“Mm,” Beru agreed, and settled against his side, closing her eyes. They were both quiet for a moment, just breathing.

“Don’t know what those two’re going to do,” Owen said, and Beru roused to lift her head. Owen was staring at the ceiling. “When they head back, after this is over. Just the two of them, and only Ben can leave to head into town, and even then he’ll need to keep himself covered…”

Oh.

Oh, _no_.

“I hadn’t thought of that,” Beru murmured, worried all over again. “You’re right, that’s--they’re so _isolated_ out there.”

Owen hummed, and reached up, dragging her back down against him. “I shouldn’t have brought it up,” he admitted, and tangled his good leg with hers, reaching down to tilt her head up to him. “I’m sorry. We’ll deal with it tomorrow.” He bent down to kiss her forehead, soft and warm, and then her nose. “It will be alright, Beru.”

Beru sighed, but kissed him back, on the lips as he drew her closer, wrapped warm strong arms around her in the darkness and pressed the world away to the shadowed corners, forgotten.

“It’ll be alright,” she agreed, reluctantly, and was rewarded with a smile, a big, calloused hand drawing up her spine as she melted into the man she loved.

She let herself be distracted, and then she slept.

* * *

The next morning, Cody was… just fine. He met Beru in the kitchen in the morning like he always did, downed two cups of caf and ate the plate of first meal she handed him with the usual small, grateful quirk of a smile, and then slipped outside before Ben came in, blaster slung across his back. He came in mid-morning after doing a circuit of the perimeter, convinced Luke to finish his training modules by pretending to be extremely interested in different types of plant, and then headed back out again mid-afternoon to do another circuit of the property. He did not mention the conversation the day before, or Anchorhead, or any Stormtroopers. Neither he nor Ben mentioned the issues they would have getting regular supplies, once they went home.

“Am I making too much of this?” Beru asked Owen, as he sat in the kitchen and peeled and chopped potatoes for third meal, Luke sitting under the table and sounding out his letters to the encouragement of a small, animated, sideways letter shen.

“Yes,” Owen said, and picked up the cutting board to tip the first set of cubed potatoes into the bowl. “It’s none of our business, Beru.”

“It might be a _bit_ our business,” Beru reasoned, finishing her own chopping and skimming the onions into her waiting pan. “Ben’s family, and--”

“And Cody walked straight out of the house all day yesterday, rather than continue that conversation,” Owen said, bluntly. “He’s allowed his privacy, Beru.” He picked up a new potato to peel, sliding the knife under the skin in a spiral pattern. Luke looked up from his pad, eyes wide and expectant as a pup begging for scraps.

“Stop giving our child the potato peels to play with,” Beru told him, putting her hands on her hips. “I can see you doing it.”

“I’m not giving Luke the potato peels,” Owen said, perfectly reasonably, and then slid the potato peel, all still one single piece, under the table to Luke, who caught it eagerly with a giggle and went about adding it to his potato peel alphabet on the floor.

“Owen, I can _see under the table_ ,” Beru said again, and started marching over. Luke hastily hid his treasures behind him as Owen swiftly propped his crutch in front of the opening, giving her a bland, innocent look. “Who is going to clean those up?” Beru asked, glaring.

“Clean what up?” Owen asked, apparently ready for death, and Beru opened her mouth to give him _what for_ \--

“Cody’s found something,” Luke informed them, out of nowhere, poking his head out from behind the crutch. “He’s coming back now.” And Beru froze, heartbeat up, and turned all at once to shut off the stove, Owen rising behind her as the sound of the front door opening and heavy, booted footfalls filled the hall. If Cody was surprised when they met him halfway, he didn’t say, face set and grave.

“We caught,” he said, voice terse and short, “a Tusken scout.”

* * *

Ben was already there by the time Beru, Owen, and Cody reached the sprung trap, hand on his lightsaber and eyes grave, watching the unconscious figure for any sign of movement. The Tusken Raider dangled off their feet in the trap, body slumped over the plasteel bar blocking them in, arms and legs bound.

“I stunned them when I saw,” Cody told them, blaster held in front of him easily, eyes narrowed at their captive. “I checked the other traps, but we haven’t caught any more, and there’s only one set of tracks that I can find.”

“They’re a scout,” Owen said absently, leaning on his crutch to observe the Raider. “Young, too.”

“The right tribe?” Ben asked. Beru frowned, stepping forward to check the clothing.

“I can’t remember,” she admitted, noting the markings on the wrappings around the arms, “but they aren’t from a tribe we’re friendly with, for certain.” Owen hissed, frustrated and tense.

“We can’t kill them; even it it’d normally be our right and end the raids, someone’d want revenge for a young death.”

“I suspect it’d be rather worse,” Ben agreed, glancing back at them, and then to Cody. Cody shrugged.

“Wasn’t in our information packets,” he admitted aloud. “You’re the experts. We just killed them.” His mouth went wry. “It wasn’t really working.” Ben hummed, glanced at Owen, and then Beru.

“I admit,” he started, slowly, “I’m… inclined to take them out into the desert, perhaps scare them a bit, and send them home.”

“Scare them?” Owen asked, and Ben shrugged.

“It’s worked before. I don’t tend to have issues anymore, at mine.”

Beru sighed, and looked back at the scout, stepping back a bit to take in the whole form. She could feel her pulse pounding in her ears, under the clarity of adrenaline. “It won’t be enough to convince them not to attack,” she said. “And it would mean that they know we’re aware they’re coming.”

“They already are,” Owen said, and shook his head. “At least now, we know they’re coming _soon_.”

* * *

Ben and Cody didn’t really need her help, getting the Tusken down, so she stood back near Owen and watched them untangle the scout from their bonds, watched Ben reach out with a hand and float the Raider up and out of the contraption they were caught in. He pulled his hood up, tucked his hands into the dark brown robe he was wearing, and walked slowly away, the Tusken dangling unconscious in mid-air beside him. Beru let herself think, for a moment, what it would be like, to come to no longer in a trap, far from where you were knocked out, flying through the air beside such a figure silently pacing beside you, and acknowledged that it perhaps made sense that the Tuskens had opted to leave Ben alone.

She shook her head, and stepped forward to help Cody reset the trap. “I’ll change it out for something different tomorrow,” he told them, as he steadied the switch for her to wrap the rope around, “or at least move it.”

“Don’t think it’ll work again?” Owen drawled, and Cody shrugged. That, Beru thought, was a no, and she sighed, dusted herself off and went to prop Owen up a bit as they hobbled back to the house.

“How long until the stun wears off?” she asked, and Cody shrugged again.

“Maybe half an hour or so,” he started. “I doubt he’ll be back before the suns start to set--”

Beru opened the door to the house, and was met by screaming.

She was through the door and down the stairs fast enough she didn’t register it, Cody right behind her, Owen stomping his way down the stairs as quick as he could. They hadn’t seen anyone, but maybe they’d come around the other side while the four of them were occupied with the trap. Beru had left her baby alone in this house--

\--Luke, covered head to toe in potato peels, crashed into her legs and bounced off, careening back down the hallway still shrieking. Left behind him was a devastating trail of chaos and shed bits of potato, wound in and out of every door in the hallway, like their bored toddler had decided that the only option available to him upon being left alone was to make as much mess as possible.

Beru, hand clutched to her chest, breathed deep, and then breathed deep again, and the screaming resolved into a four-year-old delightedly shouting the alphabet song at the top of his lungs. Next to her, Cody was still as stone, face a neutral mask as he stared with her at the devastation wrought. She didn’t need to be able to read emotions in the air like Ben or Luke to be able to feel the waves of disbelief cresting against him.

Owen, behind them, made a noise that sounded suspiciously like a wheeze of laughter. Beru turned, slowly, to find her husband slowly going purple, trying desperately not to laugh. It didn’t actually matter that half of it was probably in relief.

“Owen,” she growled, and slowly put her hands on her hips, took a step towards him.

“I don’t think you can blame me for this,” he said, and wisely took a step back. “How was I to know he’d get it into his head to--”

“I’m a _Sand Person_ ,” Luke shouted from the top of the stairs on the other end of the hallway, and screamed as he dashed into another room. Cody, very very slowly, lowered the blaster in his hands from a ready position to an at rest position, still utterly silent.

“Well, alright,” Owen said. “Maybe the pieces for this were all there.”

“You are going to _clean this up_ ,” Beru snarled, and Owen took another step back, braced his elbow on his crutch to raise his hands, clearly, clearly fighting an amused grin.

“I can’t, Beru, I’m injured. Couldn’t possibly bend down--”

“You want _injured_ ,” Beru said, and took another step towards him, backing him into the wall. “I can arrange it--”

“I’ll help,” Cody broke in, and Owen and Beru paused, turned as one to look at him. Cody looked… resigned, like he wasn’t quite sure how his life had come to this. “Cleaning,” he clarified. Owen straightened up, grinning.

“Good man,” he said, as chipper as Owen ever got, and hobbled past them. “If you manage to corral our Sand Person, I’ll watch him as we get this all under control.”

Cody hummed, and slung the blaster over his shoulder, losing the tension for something else, eyes narrowed consideringly at Owen. “Thanks,” he said, voice filled with a tone that... Beru knew very, very well, actually, and she glanced at Cody out of the corner of her eye, considering. “I’ll remember that.”

Owen waved a hand, and disappeared into the sitting room.

“Siblings?” Beru asked, and she and Cody shared a look of complete understanding.

“Two million of them,” he provided, mildly, and Beru grinned.

“Owen’s an only child,” she offered, just as conversationally, and Cody nodded, crossed his arms as he considered the door Owen had escaped through. “I had three older brothers.”

Cody turned to her, eyes full of mischief, and didn’t respond to that. Down the hall, something crashed, and Luke paused in his shrieking, apparently concerned. Beru...sighed, and Cody got the neutral look again--this one resigned. This, they both knew, was going to take _so long_ to clean up. “You get the… Sand Person, and I’ll get a broom?” Cody suggested.

“Done,” Beru agreed, and they turned, and got to work.

* * *

Not too much changed as a result of their visitor, other than Cody hauling out his armor that night, taking out a cleaning cloth and a set of tools and taking the time to go over each piece carefully, making sure there wasn’t a speck of dust or dirt on any of it. Luke bounced from piece to piece as Cody finished with it, ‘helping’ in the way only over-excited young children can.

“How does this one go on?” he’d demand, and Cody paused each time, took the armor piece and and fastened it on Luke’s too-tiny frame--arms, legs, slid the front and back piece over Luke’s head and snapped it together, huffing a laugh and catching Luke as his legs buckled from the weight.

“You’ll grow into it,” he said, sliding the helmet onto Luke’s tiny head and clearly biting his lips at the wobble of it on Luke’s shoulders. Beru looked down at her mending when he glanced her way, pretending she wasn’t melting at the scene in front of her.

“I like the new design,” she said instead, as Cody freed Luke from the helmet, chest and back guard, setting them down next to the other carefully arrayed pieces or armor. “Very bright.”

“He didn’t want _any_ white,” Luke said with authority, and snatched up a pauldron to bounce over to Beru before she could object. Cody shrugged behind her, unbothered. “I painted this one, see?”

“I do,” Beru said, taking in the riot of color in the vague shape of two suns, painted at least partially with a child’s fingers. Luke at least seemed to have kept with the theme--the rest of the armor also had suns, centered around areas on each piece where Cody had clearly mixed the orange color he’d used for the base color. There were two on the back piece, at an angle to each other, stylized rays--straight and curved--criss-crossing along the back and covering the piece with sharp, geometric designs. The helmet had the body of a sun on the side of Cody’s head, sending rays out across the entirety of it, broken only by the visor and vents. “It’s very nice, Luke,” she told him.

“He did a good job,” Cody agreed, and Luke puffed up, proud.

“Ben took _forever_ on his,” Luke said, conspiratorial, and Cody stiffened, ducking his head as though the vambrace he was working on suddenly needed his full attention. “He was real careful with the orange and then Cody had to tell him he could just do suns if he wanted.”

Beru hummed, and eyes focusing on Cody as he finished running the rag over the piece. His ears, she noted, were turning a little red, as he most definitely did not look over at her even a little. Now that she was paying attention, the suns on the piece in his hand _did_ look different--more paint was used, raising the design up slightly from the plastoid base, and the rays themselves were all straight and thinner than the other pieces. It looked like someone had taken a thumbnail to the paint, too; carefully, carefully tracing around all the edges to make them sharp, and carving some interest into the sun itself.

“I see,” she said, and Cody pinched his lips together, face otherwise blank as a wall. Very, very interesting. “Well,” she said, turning back to her child. “It was very nice of Cody to let you paint some of his armor. Go ahead and bring this back to him now, would you, dear one?”

The next morning, Cody hauled out a set of skintight clothes similar to what he’d worn when Ben had first brought him to the homestead, strapped all the armor on over top, and he went out to do his morning perimeter check, blaster slung diagonally across his back like always. The yellows and oranges were a good choice for the terrain, Beru decided, as she watched him disappear into the dunes. Ben watched him go, too, something nearly nostalgic in his eyes.

“It has been a while since I’ve seen him wear a full set,” he explained, when Beru settled next to him and tilted her head to show she was willing to listen. “Different paint design, obviously, and the armor’s certainly not what he wore during the war, but… even so.” He gestured. Beru hummed.

“He’s alright with wearing Stormtrooper armor?” she asked, because she’d wondered. Cody was so… careful about that, what he would and would not draw attention to, regarding his past.

Ben nodded, and then grinned, eyes narrowed with mischief. It made him look years younger. “Well, apparently the HUD is nothing to write home about, but otherwise, yes he’s fine. Certainly it doesn’t bother him enough to part with the extra protection for his skull.”

“It sounds like you’ve heard his opinions on that,” Beru offered, teasing, and Ben smiled a little wider.

“At this point,” he said, amused, “I could probably write a book.”

* * *

“Ben!” shouted Luke, not even half a second before full-body tackling the poor man off the stoop and into the sand. Beru, just a moment too slow to stop that catastrophe from happening, dropped her hands and closed her mouth before letting herself sigh.

“You okay, Ben?” she called, and Ben reached up and with deliberate, pointed motions formed that ‘affirmative’ sign.

“Oof,” he said aloud, equally pointedly, and pried Beru’s cheerful nephew off of himself, sitting up. “Luke, we talked about that.”

“Whatcha doing?” Luke asked, bouncing where he now sat in Ben’s lap, apparently completely ignoring the reprimand about the whole flying tackle greeting.

“I _was_ meditating,” Ben grumbled, and shifted himself into a more comfortable position as Owen clomped his way up to see what all the fuss was about and why the door was still open.

“Oooooh,” Luke said, nodding knowledgeably. “That’s a Force thing.” Owen looked at Beru, the pain she felt of parenting an overactive toddler mirrored in his eyes. He raised his eyebrows pointedly--should he go save Ben from his fate? Beru smiled, amused, and looked back at the scene. Ben looked like he was doing fine.

“It is,” Ben agreed. “It allows you to calm your thoughts. If you have the Force, that in turn makes it much easier to reach into it.”

“You said I could learn,” Luke reminded Ben, and twisted around, trying to curl his legs up the way Ben had been sitting before he tackled him, still on Ben’s lap. Owen stiffened, just as Ben froze, turned his head very slightly to look up at the doorway. “I wanna learn now!”

Silence reigned for an entire heartbeat, and then another.

It was Owen who broke the tension, shifting to rest against the doorway, arms crossed with a terse nod. Ben… relaxed, all at once.

“Well, alright,” he said, and settled Luke more comfortably on his lap. “Here. Shut your eyes. Now, we’re going to breathe together. On the count of three, breathe _in_ \--”

The lesson was short--Luke was four, and sitting still for very long was just not in the cards. But he seemed to like meditating, while he did it, curled into Ben’s lap and face very seriously screwed up as he breathed, slowly smoothing out as Ben’s clear, calm voice flowed on.

Beru settled next to Owen, taking his hand, and watched their child take his first halting steps into a world where they could not follow.

* * *

Beru was ashamed to admit that the first time Ben had a bad day, she didn’t notice for half a morning.

The thing was, he wasn’t acting any differently than he usually did. He didn’t even seem particularly distracted, or any quieter than he usually was. He got up at exactly the same time as normal, meditated in the corner while Beru hauled together first meal for the household, sat down when Cody trudged in after a circuit of the perimeter with a sleepy Luke attached to his leg, prepared to start the long, involved process of getting a four-year-old to focus on eating instead of chattering at his much more interesting adults.

If Cody glanced at Ben out of the corner of his eye more often than usual as Luke regaled them about a dream he may or may not have been horribly embellishing--well. That wasn’t _uncommon_.

Beru left them to it, and went to go help Owen out of the bedroom and into the dining room for his own first meal. “How much longer, again?” Owen groused, steadying himself on her shoulder and one of the crutches as they made their way down the hall.

“One more week until we can head back into town,” Beru answered, amused. “You’ll survive, I promise.”

“Not if I have to sit alone in a chair with nothing to do for the whole--”

“ _Ben_ ,” Luke’s voice broke in, aggrieved. “You’re not _listening_!”

Beru and Owen paused and looked at each other, eyebrows raised.

“Hm?” Ben’s voice answered. “No, I am, Luke.”

“Nuh uh.”

Ben sighed, and Beru frowned, starting them moving again.

“Everything alright?” she asked, as they hobbled in, Owen letting go to reach for a chair.

“Fine,” Cody said instead of any of the people actually involved, eyes still on Ben, a line creased into his forehead. “Luke, how about three more bites, and then you can tell the rest of your story?”

“Ben’s gotta listen, too,” Luke said stubbornly, arms crossed and scowling.

“I’m listening,” Ben assured Beru’s child, giving a small smile as he ate, and--were his movements more mechanical than usual? Beru’s frown deepened, and she wandered over, picking up the porridge and scooping a bit more into Ben’s bowl on her way to Owen, to test a theory.

Ben didn’t even pause in eating. Cody’s frown deepened. “Three bites, shiny,” he reminded Luke, and Luke huffed, taking a bite very pointedly.

“What’s on the agenda today?” Owen asked, eyes zeroing in on Ben and narrowing as well.

“Hm? Oh, just maintenance,” Ben said absently. “I don’t believe there was much left over yesterday evening--”

“Just the north vaporator,” Cody interrupted. “I can handle that if you want, I’m headed out there again this morning anyway--need to maintenance one of the traps.”

“It’s fine,” Ben said, corner of his mouth twitching a bit, and… yes, Beru wasn’t imagining the strain in the corners of his eyes.

“Actually,” she said. “If you don’t mind, Ben, I’d appreciate it if you ran into Anchorhead today. I know it’s a bit of a day trip, but I have a list of things I’d like picked up.”

She didn’t, but she could have one before first meal was over. Her eyes cut to Cody, who glanced back, a smile twitching at the corners of his own mouth. Beru nodded slightly.

“What was the story you were telling, Luke?” Owen cut in, dragging their boy’s attention away from Ben and onto him. Beru was pretty sure she wasn’t imagining the line of Ben’s shoulders loosening.

“I think I can fit that into my extremely busy schedule, Beru,” he said, under Luke’s picking up chatter.

“Thank you,” she said, and squeezed a shoulder as she went back to put the porridge onto the stove again. She filled Ben’s glass again as she sat back down to eat herself, and Cody’s face went blank the way it did when he was amused. Beru took a bite, satisfied, and nodded at him. Ben needed a break today, it seemed, but they could give him one. Everyone had bad days.

* * *

The Tuskens announced themselves with the sound of blasterfire, seventeen days after they had first attacked. Beru’s first thought was: Luke is outside with Cody.

She was _running_ before the next thought could filter through, snatching the blaster rifle propped up against the door as she stormed outside, running towards the sound of blaster bolts hitting sand and Tusken war calls echoing, towards the sound of her baby’s screams of fear.

The world slowed to the measure of her steps, the sound of her racing heartbeat. Count of ten, and there they were, in the distance--more than ten Raiders, coming over a dune to the north, and Cody in his faceless armor planted in a crouch at the base of it, rifle stock still and firing, with a small, terrified little boy crying behind him. Count of fifteen, and three of the raiders were down, two more hitting the sand on top of the dune to snipe down at Cody from that distance, as two peeled off and tried to go around instead of over--

\--Beru stopped, aimed, and fired, got the first of these two in the shoulder, and the second in the head. The first Tusken roared and changed course, heading towards her--and went down from behind. Cody’s blaster rifle twitched back towards the Tuskens coming over the rise--two on solid ground and running for him, and Beru could feel each step in her head but she wasn’t fast enough--

\--ten steps, and Cody stood. Twelve, and the butt of his rifle came up under the first Tusken’s chin with a _crack_ , the second going flying with a kick at thirteen, and another Tusken was taking aim--

\--as a blue and brown blur _shot_ over the dune Cody was standing against, and fell into the four new Tuskens on solid ground with a thrum of plasma. Cody didn’t even stop, turned as though it were his plan all along to scoop up Luke, and _bolted_ , low to the ground, towards Beru.

They nearly collided half a heartbeat later, and Luke was clinging to Beru as Cody shoved her child into Beru’s arms, snatched the blaster out of her hand and spun to pick off the two supine Raiders on top of the dune from this new angle.

“Run,” he said, and Beru ran back towards the house, Luke clutched to her chest, the sound of blasterfire dogging her steps.

She hit the door with her shoulder, barely paused at the jolt as she kicked it the rest of the way open, and dived through into the safety of her house. She practically _threw_ Luke at Owen waiting there, grabbed their final blaster as she turned to slam the door.

Her last view of the fight as the door closed was Cody reaching Ben, blasterfire taking out another Raider, as Ben’s lightsaber whirled in front of them like a shield.

* * *

The firefight might have lasted another two minutes, or it might have lasted an hour. Beru stood, blaster clutched in her hand and panting, as the shooting stopped, and Tatooine returned to its usual rustling silence.

Another eternity, and there were footsteps, slow and measured, crunching over the sand up towards the door, padding over the stone stoop. The person knocked.

Beru threw open the door and pulled a _very_ startled Ben into a hug, shaking, blaster awkwardly caught between them.

“Oh!” Ben said, and then hugged back, as Luke scrambled out of Owen’s arms and ran to join, as Owen stumbled out after him and gripped Ben’s shoulder, clearly checking him over.

“Are you alright?” Owen asked. “Is Cody alright?”

“We’re alright,” Ben said, and tentatively hugged back. “We’re fairly certain we got them all. It’s done.”

* * *

They stood on the stoop for a while longer, until smoke from a fire began to rise over on the other side of the dunes, and Cody trudged over carrying the DC, Beru’s rifle, and what looked like six or seven others, limping only slightly for taking on what Ben told them was, in fact, 16 Tusken Raiders with blasters all on his own, while protecting Beru’s child.

Beru extracted herself from the hug, pulled herself up to her full height, and whisked him inside to the fresher, demanding he give her a full accounting of any injuries to his apparent bemusement. He went easily enough anyway, stripped out of his armor sitting on the closed toilet as Beru cleaned and bandaged a blaster wound on his right side, two grazes along his left thigh, and then let Beru drag him back to the sitting room and shove him into the armchair before marching off to make them all something to drink. Luke ricocheted between all the adults like a frenetic ball of anxious comfort until he reached Owen, who scooped him back up and refused to let him go again even when Beru handed him some caf, despite the whining that started happening almost immediately. Ben settled next to Owen on the couch, shut his eyes as his breathing settled into the now-familiar rhythms of meditation, and together the five of them just…

Breathed.

Luke fell asleep on Owen between one complaint and the next, and Beru leaned over to scoop him up, went and very carefully tucked her baby into bed.

Then Owen and Beru… retired early. It had been a very, very, _very_ long day.

Beru didn’t know if she drowsed, but she thought she did, because it felt like she’d lain down, and then it was darker and Owen was saying, fingers stroking through her hair, “You realize they can probably head on back to theirs just as soon as Yafe finishes with my leg, now.”

Beru hummed, stretched where she’d curled up against her husband, and thought about that, about the low, sort of sad sinking in the pit of her stomach.

“It’s been nice with them here,” she murmured, into Owen’s shoulder, and he sighed in agreement. “We don’t really have the room for them, as things are.”

“We don’t,” Owen agreed, and they settled back into silence.

“But,” Owen said, and then the bedroom door across the way creaking open killed the rest of the words he might have said, and familiar little footfalls padded across the hall and stopped at their door. The door opened, and Luke snuck in, up on his tiptoes as he crept across the floor to crawl straight into bed. Beru opened her eyes to share a look full of fondness with Owen, who reached out and hauled Luke into the pile, pressed tight against Owen’s side with his little blond head against Owen’s chest. Beru reached up and stroked Luke’s hair.

“Can’t sleep?” she asked.

“Everyone should be together,” Luke whined, and Beru huffed.

“Alright,” she said. “You can stay tonight, if you want.”

“Okay,” Luke said, and then hushed.

For perhaps an entire minute.

“What about Ben and Cody?” Luke asked, and Beru blinked, fingers pausing in stroking Luke’s hair.

“What about them?” she asked, but Luke was squirming away, jumping out of the bed to--if his face was any indication--Owen’s _utter bemusement_ , and skidding his way down the hallway towards the sitting room.

“...Is he going to go and wake Ben and Cody up,” Owen asked, resigned.

“Yes,” Beru said, and with a great, reluctant mental wrench, sat up herself. “Let’s go save them.”

They found Luke sitting on the couch, tugging on Ben’s arm and whining.

“We gotta all be together, though,” Luke insisted, in the tone that meant he was acting very calm right now but was prepared to burst into tears at any moment.

“I’m sure your Aunt and Uncle don’t want us to... ah, sleep in their bedroom,” Ben responded, and Cody snorted from the couch, propping himself up on the cot to look over at Owen and Beru in the doorway.

“Looks like we don’t need to go anywhere, Luke,” he pointed out, and Luke looked over like he knew they’d been there all along, and _pouted_.

“...There’s room enough in the bedroom to drag the cot in, for the night,” Owen pointed out, and Beru...gave in.

“There is,” she agreed. “If you both don’t mind.”

“...Oh,” Ben said, for the second time that day, blinking. Cody huffed something of a laugh, and stood up.

“Room for the couch, too?” he asked, folding the cot up to carry with them. Luke bounced up and off the couch to cling to his leg, and got a headpat for his efforts.

“...There is not,” Owen said, voice wry.

“That’s fine,” Ben assured them hurriedly. “I’ll meditate in the corner--”

“You’ll share the cot,” Cody corrected, and hoisted the cot in question, hauling Luke along like a giggling ball and chain attached to his leg.

“I will?” Ben asked, eyebrows in his hair.

“It seems you will,” Beru informed him, and Owen rolled his eyes expansively at all of them, turning to lead the way back to the bedroom, for the night.

* * *

Owen, occasionally, had bad days, too. He woke up two days later with his leg aching, grouching at the weather and the bed and the boredom. He barely picked at first meal, settled restlessly into a chair in the kitchen and then in the sitting room and then in the dining area. Luke followed him like a particularly chatty tooka kit, stumbling along and dragging at Owen’s pant leg for his attention, no matter how many times Owen brushed him off or Beru tried to distract him. It was going to explode, Beru knew, wryly, and then Owen was going to feel terrible about it. He wasn’t angry because of Luke.

“I could try to distract him,” Cody offered, watching the same drama unfold with a wry twist to his mouth. “He could come out with Obi-Wan and me and make a mess of the workshop.” Ben huffed where he was reading on a pad, looking up with wry amusement at the two of them.

“Oh, could he,” he drawled, and Cody raised an eyebrow back, mischief at the corners of his eyes.

“Something to say, General,” he teased, and it seemed like it wasn’t a bad day for _Ben_ , at least, because all he did was roll his eyes at Cody and return pointedly to his holopad. Beru let herself chuckle, wiped her hands on her apron.

“If you don’t mind, it may be for the best--” she started.

“ _Luke Skywalker, what did I just say?_ ” Owen snapped. Beru sighed, looking towards the dining room.

“Well, now might be the time--”

A plate crashed into the floor. She whipped her head around, startled, and Cody was right where she’d left him, eyes wide and lips white from how hard he was pressing them together, hands still placed like he was holding a plate, like it had slipped through numb fingers.

“Cody,” Ben said, just as startled. “What--”

“ _Skywalker_?” Cody choked out, like he’d forced it from his throat. “ _Skywalker_.” He was staring in the direction of Owen and Luke, and Beru finally placed the look on his face as horror.

“Cody--” Ben said again, rising to his feet.

“Did you not know?” Beru asked, because that in the end was more important. “We thought--we assumed Ben had told you--”

“He did not,” Cody bit out, and snapped his mouth shut again with a click. Stiffly, he walked around her and away, and Beru followed quickly to see him walk straight to the stairs out of the homestead, and out the door. She stared, and then rounded on Ben.

“I know,” he said, and reached up to rub his eyes. “I know. Go to Owen and Luke, I’ll handle that.”

Beru went, swooped into the room to find Owen with Luke on his good leg, cuddled up and hushing him. “What was that all about,” he asked, over their sniffling child’s head.

“I don’t know,” Beru admitted, biting her lip. Owen scowled, and then sighed.

“We’re alright,” he said. “We’ve made up, haven’t we, son?” Luke sniffed and nodded into Owen’s chest, and Owen’s arms tightened around him a little. “Go deal with the problem children,” he drawled, and... it helped. Beru found herself smiling at him in spite of herself as she left the room again, walked outside to where she could hear raised voices even downstairs in the sitting room.

“-- _let me walk into that house_ ,” Cody’s voice said, tight and furious, as she reached the peak of the stairs. “You know why that was dangerous! You, of _all people_ \--”

“Cody,” Ben snapped. “You are _not a danger_ to that child. I’ve already told you, the chip--”

“And you’re a _healer_ now,” Cody snarled, and Beru stuck her head out to see him pacing in front of the porch like a caged animal, hands buried in his hair, Ben watching from the stoop with his arms crossed and a scowl on his face. “Should have mentioned that to Owen, we wouldn’t have had to spend so much time _endangering a four-year-old_ \--”

“We weren’t--”

“You _don’t know_ ,” Cody snapped, voice cracking like a whip, and he rounded on Ben, shoulders hunched and pupils blown. His breathing was too fast, Beru noted, frozen where she was in the doorway. “How could you know? And if you say ‘the Force’, I am going to _remind_ you, _Obi-Wan_ , that the Force _did not warn you the first time_.”

Ben stiffened, pulling himself up to his full height. “I’ll ask you not to make assumptions about what the Force did and did not do the first time,” he snapped back. “There were, in fact, plenty of warnings--”

“A lot of good that did us--”

“--but the Dark Side had clouded--”

“-- _And it’s better now_?” Cody bellowed, and then just… stopped, face in his hands, and he was _shaking_ \--

Beru took a step, but Ben had beaten her to it, was already across the sand and hauling Cody into a hug, wrapping him up tight and tucking his face into Ben’s neck, and Cody clung back, a sound that wasn’t quite a sob as it was a gasp escaping him, like the sound someone makes when they’ve been shot.

“I’m sorry,” Ben said, sounding near heartbroken. “I’m _sorry_ , Cody.”

“I don’t--even know what it would make me _do_ , now,” Cody got out, and Ben carefully lowered them both until they were kneeling on the sand.

“Nothing,” Ben insisted. “It doesn’t matter, because it’s _dead_ , Cody. I promise you, it’s dead.”

“It’s _still in my head_ ,” Cody said back, and that--that was enough. Beru stepped back from the door, away as something that finally, finally sounded like a sob ripped itself from Cody’s throat, and closed it, carefully, so that they weren’t disturbed while Cody shook himself apart. It seemed to her that it had been a long time coming.

* * *

“I’m a sleeper agent,” Cody said to her later, grimacing over the caf clutched in his hands, after he and Ben finally came back in and they’d allowed themselves to be corralled around the kitchen table. “I thought you knew.”

“I know that Ben said that the mind control chip in your head is inactive,” Beru said carefully, and Cody grimaced again, rubbing a hand over his face.

“It is,” he said, before Ben could puff himself up enough to interject. “But they were all inactive during the war, until they weren’t. There’s at least one example I can think of, where a blow to the head switched a chip on.”

“There were extenuating circumstances,” Ben insisted, frowning severely--ready to fight again in Cody’s defense, even against Cody himself. Beru watched Cody’s mouth quirk at the corners, weary and more fond than he probably wanted to let on, and shared a meaningful look with Owen to her right.

“It was damaged,” Cody agreed. “But it turned on instead of off. Stormtroopers all have Order 66 active--that’s.” He closed his mouth, took a sip of his caf. “It’s a kill order. All Jedi and Force sensitives are to be shot on sight.”

“Luke’s Force sensitive,” Beru spoke into the world, quite a few of Cody’s reactions suddenly making a lot of sense.

“I thought,” Cody agreed, “that if I never had it confirmed, and the worst happened, that it’d be more logical for me to go for the confirmed threat. Safer.”

The confirmed threat, Beru realized, was Ben. Who Cody trusted to handle himself. Ben looked, for a moment, very tired. Beru felt a pang for them both, suddenly, wanted to wrap them both up and stand guard at the door, a blaster in her hands.

“Would that have worked?” Owen asked, eyes narrowed, and Cody shrugged.

“It did the first time,” he said, and nothing more, as if that were all the explanation they needed.

“...The first time?” Beru asked. Ben sighed.

“He means that he ordered my men to shoot me off a cliff,” Ben drawled, and Cody visibly winced. “And when they couldn’t find a body, the chip allowed him to reason that a baseline human shouldn’t have been able to survive the fall into rocky waters.”

“...He gave you the chance to run,” Owen suggested.

“He did,” Ben agreed, and they were all silent again, letting that sink in. Cody’s jaw was tight, eyes on his caf. Beru gave in, reached over to squeeze his wrist for a moment, and gave him a smile when he glanced up. She got a small, barely there smile in return.

“The tipping point here,” Ben said, “is--correct me if I’m wrong, Cody--that nobody who had ever met a Skywalker would have any doubts that the strange things they can manage are due to the Force.”

“That,” Cody agreed, “and I _have_ been informed who Darth Vader is.” He swallowed, breathed in and out again. “I’m not sure, honestly, if the fact that Luke may or may not have been Force sensitive is even relevant. I don’t know what the chip would make me do, to Darth Vader’s son.”

The silence stretched around the table. Cody nodded, that same wry, tired, angry twist to his mouth firmly in place. Owen sighed, finally, rubbed a hand over his face again.

“The chip is not going to turn back on,” Ben insisted again.

“You can guarantee that?” Owen asked.

“Yes,” Ben said, the same time Cody said ‘no’. “ _Yes_ ,” Ben said, more forcefully this time. “I can.”

“...It doesn’t matter, does it?” Beru asked, looking at Cody. “It’s not something you should have to live with, Cody. Why haven’t you had it taken out?”

Cody… snorted, looked at Ben, and the twist to his mouth had gone more wry again. Ben returned the look. Owen, next to Beru, huffed and crossed his arms.

“The issue is, unfortunately, that there are no healers with the requisite equipment that we could hire without putting… everything at risk,” Ben explained, turning back to them, the veil of the Negotiator Beru had first seen with the jawas falling over him like a cloak.

“I’d be listed as MIA now,” Cody added, and rubbed at his face again. His fingers brushed over his temple. “They’ll swap that to KIA next year, and then the--Stormtroopers will stop looking for me, and I’ll have a chance. As it stands, there’s a bounty out for information on me--standard procedure.” His mouth ticked up, wry and bitter. “In case I just deserted.”

“Which you did,” Owen pointed out, taking a sip of water.

“Which I did,” Cody agreed. “If I went to a healer now, there’s nothing to say they wouldn’t go straight to the Imperials, and then--” he tilted his head in a gesture to encompass the whole room, the people sitting in it, Beru’s little boy down the hall, sounds already indicating that he was getting bored without supervision. “It’s only a year,” he added, like he hadn’t just melted down outside Beru’s home, terrified and aching with it, hadn’t just spent the last however long this conversation had been going insisting that nobody could be _sure_ he was safe. Beru set her water glass down.

“You shouldn’t have to live with this over your head for a year,” she told him, very firm.

“I’ve been told by reliable sources that it’s dead,” Cody drawled, hands folded on the table, back very straight.

“But you don’t really believe it,” Ben said, quietly, and Cody flinched. Didn’t have to agree out loud for them all to know that, at least, was true.

“I wouldn’t either,” Owen interjected, dryly. “Thing like that happens once, it doesn’t matter how many assurances you have. You want to hold the proof in your hands before you can believe it.” Cody’s eyes fell on Owen for a long moment, and then he nodded, once, tight and sharp. Owen nodded back, and looked at Beru.

Beru hummed, and gave him a smile. “There’s no healer you know that you can trust,” she clarified, just one more time. “Nobody you’d believe wouldn’t turn you over?”

“We’re not citizens of Tatooine,” Ben pointed out, dryly. “I won’t be until next year, myself.”

“You’re my brother,” Owen stated, and Ben froze, startled. Owen sighed, and glanced at Beru for support. It was all Beru could do not to laugh at his expression. “My brother’s brother, which is close enough. ”

“I--” Ben said, eyes wide, and Owen rolled his own eyes expansively.

“Did you think I was joking, when I said that before,” he drawled. “I should be offended. You _are family._ That’s a big thing, here on Tatooine. You’ve got some protection, being family of the Larses.”

“...I’m not,” Cody pointed out. “And it’s me that’s the concern.”

“Yes,” Beru said, and then pulled herself up very straight. “But you could be.”

She smiled, as Ben and Cody both looked to her, Ben’s eyebrows hitting his hairline and Cody’s face going neutral-still. _There it is_ , she thought. _I have your attention, finally._

“Family’s tricky on Tatooine,” she told them, quiet and calm and sure. “Sometimes, family shows up, and it’s not safe to say where they came from, or how they’re family.” Escaped slaves, she didn’t say. Children of slaves with a freed parent, she didn’t add. Bounty hunters and mercenaries, convicts on the run. Deserters, she didn’t need to tell them. They knew. “There’s long been a legal process for that,” she explained. “Basically, we all go down to Mos Eisley, and Owen and I declare you both part of our domestic unit. You’re counted in the census as part of the Lars homestead, a certain amount of your earnings will have to be considered part of the homestead’s earnings. You’d need to live here about sixty percent of the time--there _are_ rules. But--” she looked to Owen, and Owen sighed.

“...We’ve liked you here,” he admitted. Straight and quiet and clear. “The extra hands’ve been useful, and we seem to cohabitate well. We’d be willing, if you both were, and then Beru’s aunt can take a look at Cody’s head.”

Silence, for a beat. “...Are you asking us to _marry_ you?” exploded out of Ben, and Beru couldn’t help it, she _cracked up_ , Owen sputtering next to her.

“ _No_ ,” Owen snapped. “Aren’t you listening? It just means you’re family, without saying how.”

“This is a lot to ask,” Cody interjected, and Beru’s giggles quieted at the sound of his voice. Tight, choked, eyes sharp with what might be hope.

Carefully, carefully, she reached out to take his hand again. “You’re family already,” she told him, and something in his jaw jumped. She squeezed the fingers under her palm. “You are, Cody. Luke loves you. We love having you. You’re family through Ben, and Ben’s family through Owen. It’s not a leap, on Tatooine. Just a formal declaration, to make things easier. It’s an offer we’re giving you--you’re not asking anything.”

“...I don’t know,” Ben said, carefully, “that--” He paused, and Beru thought she only saw him swallow because she was looking for it. “Sixty percent of the time, you said?”

“We’re not asking you to spend all your time here, no. You’re both adults,” Owen drawled. “You’ll need space.”

“Sixty percent of the time,” Beru confirmed. “You’ll need to spend at least some of the rest at your own house, we know.”

“We’d be taking over your sitting room permanently.”

“I’ll add on,” Owen drawled. “I’ve been meaning to anyway.”

Ben and Cody looked at each other--some conversation passing between them, silent. Beru held Cody’s hand, and let them decide.

It was Ben who nodded, in the end, and turned to look at them, even though it was Cody who slumped, shoulders dropping, and ran a hand through his hair, like the tension left him all at once.

“Well,” Ben said, philosophically, and smiled. “If you’re adding on anyway.”

**Author's Note:**

> Come scream with me over on tumblr at [adiduck](https://adiduck.tumblr.com/)! I am all about new friends, always. XD


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